#passage of time in hell according to supernatural

[yamayuandadu]

"Nine-headed hermit": the early history of Zhong Kui (and his sister)

Gong Kai's painting Zhongshan Going on Excursion, showing Zhong Kui, his sister and various demons during a journey (wikimedia commons) Zhong Kui is probably one of the most recognizable figures from Chinese mythology today and continues to star in novels, movies and other works. However, his modern image largely depends on sources the Ming and Qing periods. In this article, I’ll attempt to instead shed some light on some lesser known aspects of his earlier history. You will be able to learn why he was called a “nine headed hermit” despite having only one head, what he had to do with foxes, when his sister was portrayed as an exorcist like him, and more. As a bonus, I’ve included a brief summary of Zhong Kui’s reception in medieval Japan.

The earliest history of Zhong Kui

Zhong Kui’s history goes all the way back to the Zhou period (most of the first millennium BCE). A homophone of his name (鍾馗), zhongkui (終葵; also zhongzui, 終椎) at the time referred to a type of ritual mallet used to expel demons. During the Six Dynasties period first cases of this term (now written as 鍾馗 ori 鍾葵) being used as a personal name start to pop up. The purpose was most likely to confer the protection granted by such objects to a child just through their name. Numerous cases are attested, and it doesn’t seem the bearers of the moniker Zhong Kui can be distinguished by a specific origin, social class or even gender. The earliest possible reference to a specific supernatural being named Zhong Kui comes from the Taishang Dongyuan Shenzhou Jing (太上洞淵神咒經; “Scripture of the Divine Incantations of the Abyssal Caverns of the Most High”), a Daoist work possibly composed as early as in the fourth century. The oldest surviving copy of the passage concerning Zhong Kui has been identified in a copy from Dunhuang dated to 664. He appears in it as an assistant of king Wu of Zhou and Confucius (sic) who helps them subjugate ghosts and disease demons. It is not impossible that to the compilers of Taishang Dongyuan Shenzhou Jing Zhong Kui was only a stand-in for an exorcist, though, not a single well defined figure. There’s an eyewitness account of such specialists dressing up in leopard skins, painting their faces red and announcing they are Zhong Kui in another, slightly newer Dunhuang text. It specifies that many Zhong Kui exist, and that they answer to the “General of Five Paths”, an originally apocryphal Buddhist figure eventually canonized as one of the kings of hell (you can find an excellent article about him here). In any case, regardless of the clear evidence for ambiguous use of the term in earlier times, it is agreed Zhong Kui became a well defined figure by the end of the Tang period. That’s also when legends about his origin started to circulate.

The legend of Zhong Kui

A typical depiction of Zhong Kui as a Tang period official by the Qing period artist Lü Xue (wikimedia commons)

According to the most popular version of Zhong Kui’s origin story, he was a scholar from the Zhongnan Mountains who lived during the reign of Gaozu of Tang (reigned 618-626). He took part either in the imperial examination or the imperial military examination (that’s an ahistorical detail - it was established by Wu Zetian in 702), but failed. This detail is not elaborated upon further in early accounts, but by the Ming period it was attributed not to lack of skill but rather to prejudice against Zhong Kui’s physical appearance (he is fairly consistently described as dark-skinned, unusually tall, with a bulbous head and excessive facial hair). It’s possible that this new backstory was based in part on experiences of real officials of foreign origin, whose appearance was sometimes mocked by their peers, as already documented in Tang sources. Another possibility is that the descriptions were meant to be exaggerated to the point of making him resemble a demon, though. Either way, out of despair caused by failure Zjong Kui committed suicide by smashing his head against the steps leading to the imperial palace. However, since in his final words he swore to protect the emperor and his realm, he didn’t return as a vengeful ghost, but rather as a queller of malevolent supernatural entities. Alternatively, he took this role out of gratitude for Gaozu, who was saddened by his death and organized the burial worthy of an honored official for him. Note that in later plays which often serve as the basis for modern adaptations, the burial is typically arranged by a certain Du Ping (杜平), a friend of Zhong Kui from back home. Apparently a version in which the kings of hell are so impressed by Zhong Kui that they decide to make him the king of the ghosts also exists, though I was unable to track down its original source. In any case, he is associated with Mount Fengdu - one of the terms referring to the realm of the dead - in a poem by Song Wu (宋无; 1260–1340) already. He, or at least generic clerk figures based on his iconography, also sometimes appear in Song period paintings of the Ten Kings.

Several Zhong Kui-like clerks from a depiction of hell in Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation (wikimedia commons)

According to Shih-shan Huang a single example of such a figure has even been identified in a Manichaean context, specifically in the scroll Sermon on Mani’s Teaching on Salvation.

Manichaean curiosities aside, supposedly the first person to be aided by Zhong Kui was emperor Xuanzong of Tang. At some point he fell gravely ill. In a dream, he saw a demon who attempted to steal a flute which was one of his most prized possessions. However, the attempt was foiled by a fearsome giant, who dealt with the thief rather brutally, poking out one of his eyes and then devouring him. After completing this act of demon quelling, he explained that he is Zhong Kui, and how he came to fulfill his current role. After waking up, Xuanzong felt healthy again. He was so impressed he commissioned Wu Daozi, arguably the most famous artist in China at the time, to prepare a painting of Zhong Kui which could be used as a talisman against any further supernatural issues. Supposedly it left quite the impression on the general populace, and soon numerous images of Zhong Kui started to be distributed as talismans. There is definitely a kernel of truth to this part of the legend, as eyewitness accounts of Wu Daozi’s painting exist, but the work itself is lost. As a side note, it’s worth pointing out the flute thief demon, despite meeting a gruesome end here, enjoyed a literary afterlife of his own. A certain Li Mingfeng (李鳴鳳), the author of a colophon on one of the earliest surviving Zhong Kui paintings, suggests that the (in)famous rebel An Lushan might have been a reincarnation of this specific entity. While I am not aware of any other attempts at providing him with a backstory, in Ming period retellings of the legend, he received a name, Xu Hao (虛耗).

Zhong Kui’s later career

Zhong Kui’s popularity grew after the Tang period, and he arguably eclipsed figures such as the fangxiang (方相) or the baize (白沢) as the demon queller par excellence. Legends about his origin and his first notable act of demon quelling which I summarized above spread far and wide during the reign of the Song dynasty. After becoming a well defined figure, Zhong Kui came to be most commonly classified as a ghost (鬼; gui). In texts from the Song and Yuan periods he is often labeled more specifically as a “big ghost” (大鬼, dagui) or “ghost hero” (鬼雄, guixiong). However, his popularity effectively made him a god in popular imagination, and as a matter of fact he is referred to as such. His divinity is not exactly conventional, though. This topic is addressed in Fu Lu Shou Xianguan Qinghui 福祿壽仙官慶會 (The Immortal Officials of Happiness, Wealth and Longevity Gather in Celebration) by the Ming playwright Zhu Youdun (朱有燉; 1379-1435). Zhong Kui says himself that unlike his peers, he has no festival to call his own, and receives no regular offerings - and yet, he still vanquishes malicious entities on behalf of humans as long as talismans showing him continue to be distributed.

Interestingly, despite his long career in texts, no images of Zhong Kui older than the thirteenth century are known. This is mostly a matter of selective preservation, though - we know that depictions of him existed as early as in the ninth century, and that they were mass produced, presumably as woodblock prints, in the tenth. However, he didn’t necessarily look similar to his modern depictions. He actually only came to be depicted as a Tang scholar in the Song period. It seems earlier his costume might have varied. One thing which seemingly remained consistent when it comes to Zhong Kui’s appearance is his facial hair. This feature is even emphasized in many of his epithets, such as “Old Beard” (老髯, Lao Ran), “Bearded Elder” (髯翁, Ran Wong) or “Bearded Lord” (髯君, Ran Jun). It’s possible that this was initially a way to highlight his vitality and his opposition to disease-causing demons. Tang and Song sources indicate the state of facial hair could be viewed as an indicator of health. There’s even a handful of peculiar anecdotes about certain emperors, like Taizong of Tang or Renzong of Song, believing their facial hair has supernatural healing powers and offering ailing courtiers concoctions in which it was one of the ingredients. There’s no evidence Zhong Kui’s hair was ever believed to serve a similar purpose, though. Not all of Zhong Kui’s titles revolve around his beard, though. An interesting example is “Nine-Headed Hermit” (九首山人). The intent isn’t to imply he has nine heads, it’s a multilayered pun instead. The character 馗 in Zhong Kui’s name is a combination of 九, “nine”, and 首, “head”. Referring to him as a “hermit”, literally “man of the mountain”, is likely supposed to show that he traverses areas traditionally believed to be inhabited by demons.

The nine-headed snake Xiangliu (wikimedia commons)

Chun-Yi Tsai suggests that this title also highlights Zhong Kui’s physical prowess by implicitly evoking “a nine-headed serpent known for its tremendous strength in Guideways through Mountains and Seas” (presumably Xiangliu).

Zhong Kui’s strength lets him punish his enemies in various unexpectedly creative ways. The earliest sources already mention he could grind vanquished demons in a mill, for instance. References to eating them are particularly common. Depending on the source, Zhong Kui might simply devour them whole, hunt and prepare them like game animals, chop them up to pickle them, mince them to prepare meat snacks, squeeze them to make juice and wine, and so on. Such comedically gruesome descriptions are generally limited to textual sources, since violence was rarely depicted in other mediums, even in relation to military topics. Wu Daozi’s lost painting was apparently one of the exceptions, as according to a tenth century description it showed Zhong Kui gouging out the eyes of the captured demon.

Zhong Kui’s sister and other assistants

While Zhong Kui is often depicted in the company of nondescript demons, there are relatively few recurring figures associated with him. The main exception is his sister. The Song period painter Gong Kai (龔開) and his contemporary Li Mingfeng (李鳴鳳) simply refer to her as Amei (阿妹), literally “younger sister”, though here it’s apparently a personal name, following Chun-yi Tsai’s interpretation. Her origin is unknown, and she is not present in any of the early variants of the legend. 

Zhong Kui Marrying Off His Sister (wikimedia commons)

Today Zhong Kui’s sister is known chiefly from works of art in various mediums which can be broadly subsumed under the label “Zhong Kui marrying off his sister” (鍾馗嫁妹, Zhong Kui jiamei) which proliferated through the Ming and Qing periods. This label is sometimes applied to earlier paintings too, for example Zhong Kui Marrying Off His Sister (鍾馗嫁妹圖, Zhong Kui jiamei tu) is the conventional modern title of a scroll attributed to the poorly known painter Yan Geng (顏庚). A colophon from the Ming period describing this work calls the figure presumed to be Zhong Kui’s sister Ayi (阿姨; an informal way to refer a maternal aunt) as opposed to Amei. Chun-yi Tsai states it is not impossible that the woman is supposed to be Zhong Kui’s wife, rather than his sister, though. The painting can be dated to the Yuan period, and there is no evidence for the story of Zhong Kui marrying off his sister before the Ming plays - granted, it is not impossible that it was already in circulation earlier. Still, other paintings showing Zhong Kui marrying off his sister only date to the Qing period. Additionally, the procession might be a parody of paintings showing rural marriages or couples moving to a new house. 

While as far as I am aware this eventually went out of fashion, in early sources Zhong Kui’s sister could be portrayed as an exorcist herself. An example can be found in one of the sermons of the Chan monk Yuanwu (圓悟; 1063–1135), in which he states that celebrations on the “Double Fifth” (端午節, duanwu jie) - the fifth day of the fifth month - involved a dance of “Zhong Kui and his little sister”. A reference to performers dressed up as the pair (as well as kings of hell, gods of soil and stove, various warrior deities and more) has alsobeen identified in an account of celebrations in Kaifeng from the end of the reign of the Northern Song dynasty.

Similar evidence can be found in art too. For example, Zheng Yuanyou (鄭元祐; 1292-1364) in a poem inspired by a painting titled Zhong Kui’s Sister (馗妹圖; as far as I am aware, this work has not been identified) states that she travels alongside her brother, that she’s armed with a sword, and that demons fear her. A related portrayal of her is known from a critical review of the works of Si Yizhen (姒頤真), a Song dynasty painter. According to Gong Kai, in one of his paintings she is shown in tattered (or unbuttoned - the term used, 披襟, can mean both) clothes, and chases away a boar attacking her brother. He was evidently not fond of this innovation, and criticizes it as “vulgar” and inappropriate. It needs to be stressed that Gong Kai’s displeasure wasn’t necessarily tied to presenting Zhong Kui’s sister as a demon queller, though. In fact, he is actually the author of the most famous work portraying her in this role. 

Gong Kai's take on Zhong Kui's sister and her attendants (wikimedia commons; cropped for the ease of viewing)

Gong Kai depicted Amei in unusual black makeup, which is also worn by female demons accompanying her (note the one carrying a kitty!). This might be a parody of the sanbai (三白; “three whites”) face painting popular in the Song period. She and her attendants wear robes decorated with depictions of the “five poisons” (五毒), a term referring to animals perceived as particularly dangerous and inauspicious. The exact list varies, though centipedes, scorpions and snakes in particular are mainstays. The five poisons are directly associated with Zhong Kui, as he can be invoked to ward them off. Direct evidence first appears in the Qing period in accounts of the well known Dragon Boat Festival, but it’s not impossible this was an earlier development.

It is presumed that Gong Kai’s painting might depict Zhong Kui and Amei looking for a demonic version of Yang Guifei, as indicated by various hints in colophons. Her portrayals in art are quite diverse, but attributing demonic traits to her would be hardly unparalleled - she could even be described as a “palace demon” (宮妖, gong yao). The decline of the Tang dynasty was blamed on her, and metaphorically she might have been invoked to criticize other people believed to improperly use the power granted to them by the imperial court.

Gong Kai’s painting also depicts a less recurring member of Zhong Kui’s entourage. One of the demons carries a fox, specifically a nine-tailed specimen. The association between this animal and Zhong Kui goes all the way back to the early Tang period. In one of the Dunhuang manuscripts, the demon queller’s entourage includes a nine-tailed fox and a baize, who acted as bringers of good luck alongside him. It’s also worth pointing out that in another text from the same site, his mount during the hunt for a wangliang (魍魎; I will likely cover this entity a future article, stay tuned) is a “wild fox”. Chun-Yi Tsai attributes the inclusion of a nine-tailed fox among Zhong Kui’s servants as a “family pet” of sorts to the portrayals of this supernatural creature both as an apotropaic antidote to poison (including the five poisons) and as a demon in its own right. It would be a suitable member of Zhong Kui’s entourage both as a conquered malevolent being and as an amplifier for his exorcistic, protective power. A further possibility is that the association is the result of wordplay. A new year celebration involving a procession of people dressed up as members of Zhong Kui’s entourage, including his sister and various supernatural attendants, was known as dayehu (打夜胡). The homphony between 胡 and 狐, “fox”, might have resulted in the inclusion of the animal among the helpers.

Post scriptum: Zhong Kui in Japan

Zhong Kui, as depicted in Extermination of Evil (wikimedia commons)

Zhong Kui - or rather Shōki, following the Japanese reading of his name - probably reached Japan in the Insei period. Many other figures originating in China reached a considerable degree of popularity in Japan at roughly the same time - Taishan Fujun, Siming, Wudao Dashen, Pangu, Shennong, the examples keep piling up.

The oldest known Japanese depiction of Zhong Kui, which you can see above, is a painting from the twelfth century set known as Extermination of Evil. It might look a bit outlandish compared to most of the other depictions shown through this article, but I was able to locate a very close Chinese parallel:

A Yuan period depiction of Zhong Kui from the collection of the Beijing Library, via Richard von Glahn’s Sinister Way. Reproduced here for educational purposes only.

This is a Yuan period illustration said to be based on Wu Daozi’s painting. Zhong Kui doesn’t look like a Tang scholar yet, and the jacket and wide-brimmed hat are remarkably similar. It seems safe to assume that the Japanese painter was following a similar model - presumably one of the many now lost early depictions of Zhong Kui. Slightly antiquated iconography surviving far away from the core area associated with a specific figure would hardly be unparalleled - it has been recently suggested that the baize/hakutaku is a similar case, with Japanese depictions and descriptions matching Tang sources fairly closely, but missing the elements which developed in the Song period or later. For the most part, Zhong Kui fulfilled a similar role in Japan as in China: he was regarded as a fearsome demon queller, and images representing him were distributed for apotropaic purposes. However, it’s also important to note that there were certain innovations. He arrived in Japan at the brink of the middle ages - theologically speaking an era of unparalleled innovation, during which both native and imported figures were interpreted in unexpected ways, leading to the rise of a new “medieval mythology”. Zhong Kui was hardly an exception from this trend. A “medieval myth” involving Zhong Kui is known from Hoki Naiden (ほき内伝; “Inner Tradition of the Square and the Round Offering Vessels”), an onmyōdō treatise traditionally attributed to Abe no Seimei, but most likely written by one of his descendants in the fourteenth century. Curiously, Zhong Kui’s name is written in it as 商貴 instead of the expected 鍾馗.

Tenkeisei (wikimedia commons)

In the Hoki Naiden, Zhong Kui is still a queller of malevolent supernatural beings. However, instead of being a scorned scholar, he is a yaksha who became the ruler of Rājagṛha, a city in India. He is said to correspond to both the medieval Japanese deity Gozu Tennō (牛頭天王), and to his celestial “double” Tenkeisei (天刑星; from Chinese Tianxingxing), the “star of heavenly punishment” (I covered him here). They are said to be his manifestations respectively on earth and in heaven. This equation might seem random at first glance, but both of them actually had a lot in common with Zhong Kui: all three were believed to keep demons, especially those causing diseases, in check. Curiously, the reinterpretation of Zhong Kui as a yaksha turned king can also be found in the Genkō Shakusho (元��釈書), a Kamakura period Buddhist history book. However, I am not aware of any studies examining it in more detail. I assume identifying him as a yaksha was a result of association with Gozu Tennō (I briefly discussed his yaksha credentials here), rather than the other way around, though.

While Hoki Naiden ultimately pertains more to medieval than modern religion, it’s worth noting that an unconventional take on Zhong Kui is still part of an extant tradition. Through history, Zhong Kui could be identified as a dōsojin (道祖神). This term denotes a class of deities meant to protect roads, crossroads and borders of villages. In parts of the Niigata prefecture this form of him is sometimes referred to as Shōki Daimyōjin (鍾馗大明神) today.

Bibliography

Joshua Capitanio, Epidemics and Plague in Premodern Chinese Buddhism

Bernard Faure, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Richard von Glahn, The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture

Shih-shan Susan Huang, Picturing the True Form. Daoist Visual Culture in Traditional China

Wilt Idema & Stephen H. West, Zhong Kui at Work: A Complete Translation of The Immortal Officials Of Happiness, Wealth, and Longevity Gather in Celebration , by Zhu Youdun (1379–1439)

Chun-Yi Joyce Tsai, Imagining the Supernatural Grotesque: Paintings of Zhong Kui and Demons in the Late Southern Song (1127-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) Dynasties

[zacharyleigh316]

Okay, so hear me out y’all.

This is the farthest thing from fanfiction, I know, but I literally couldn’t help myself. Of course this is all a rough estimation, because time is relative, and very hard to actually measure numerically and be completely accurate, but it is what it is. And February is weird within itself and the exception to my data, give or take a few days or so. BUT...

I did a whole bunch of math to depict the passage of time in Hell, as accurately as possible, according to Supernatural. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t even know; i just did okay?

Like, we know Dean was in hell for forty years, yeah? But on earth it was only four months, meaning ten years passed in one earth month. Each earth month has approx. four weeks, and each earth week has 7 days, so seven days for each week for a month is approx. 28 days, but we know each month, aside from February actually has 30-31 days. 4 weeks for four months is 16 weeks, which is approx. 112 days, but when taking in account the 30-31 it actually becomes approx. 120-124 days in four months. And like I said before, we know one month equals ten years in Hell time. So using the information above, if we split each week in half (just about) for the one month, we get our ten years. Because we have seven days in those 4-ish weeks split in half, half of seven is 3.5, and because there’s really 30-31 days, 3-3.5 days in an earth month equal an entire year in Hell time.

So far that’s: 4 earth months = 40 hell years

1 earth month = 10 hell years

3-3.5 earth days = 1 hell year

But this can be broken down further so bear with me, because this is where things get heavy. What really is the true passage of time?

Well, we know that 12 earth months equal an earth year, so that the 3-3.5 days that equal a hell year is also equivalent to 12 hell months, naturally. And there’s 365 days. Each earth day is 24 hours and three to three and a half days would be equal to 72-84 hours. So that means 72-84 earth hours is also equal to one hell year, as well as 365 hell days. 365 days equals about 8,760 hours. So 72-84 hours on earth is 8,760 hours in hell. A half of year is six months, or 182.5 days, or 4,380 hours. Half of 3-3.5 earth days is 1.5-1.75 (or 1 1/2-1 3/4) Earth days so that would be equivalent to half a year in hell. Half of half a year is 3 months, which is approx. 12 weeks, or approx. 84 days which is also 2,016 hours. Which means a approx. 3/4-a bit more of an earth day equals 3 months in hell, which is about 18-21 earth hours as well. 60 minutes are in an hour, so 1,080-1,260 minutes equal 18-21 hours. 540-630 earth minutes which is really 9-10.5 earth hours equals 1.5 (or 1 1/2) hell months. 3/4 (.75) of a hell month is really 3 hell weeks, which is 21 hell days, or about 504 hell hours, equals 4.5-5.25 earth hours, so 1.5 hell weeks is around 10.5 hell days, which is about 252 hell hours, equals about 2.25-2.63 earth hours. 3/4 of a week is about 5.25 days, so 126 hell hours is 1.13-1.33 earth hours which is about 67.8-79.8 earth minutes. A fourth of a hell week then is 1.75 (or 1 3/4) of a hell day, which is about 42 hell hours, so 22.6-26.6 earth minutes. 1 hell day then is minus 18 hell hours from 42 or 1,080 hell minutes from 2,520 (so 1,440 min to equal 24 hours which is the one hell day) or (taking 3/4 away from 22.6-26.6 minutes) 16.95-19.95 earth minutes—which equals to 1,017-1,197 seconds.

So now we actually know:

4 earth months = 40 hell years

1 earth month = 10 hell years

3-3.5 (3-3 1/2) earth days = 1 hell year

1.5-1.75 (1 1/2-1 3/4) earth days = half (1/2) a hell year or 6 hell months

3/4 (.75) earth day or 18-21 earth hours = 3 hell months

9-10.5 (9-10 1/2) earth hours = 1.5 (1 1/2) hell months

4.5-5.25 (4 1/2-5 1/4) earth hours = 3 hell weeks

2.25-2.63 earth hours = 10.5 (10 1/2) hell days or 1.5 (1 1/2) hell weeks

1.13-1.33 earth hours or 67.8-79.8 earth minutes = 3/4 (.75) hell week or 5.25 (5 1/4) hell days

22.6-26.6 earth minutes = 1.75 (1 3/4) hell day or 42 hell hours

16.95-19.95 earth minutes or 1,017-1,197 earth seconds = 1 hell day

So...yup...there you have it. Approximately 16-19 Earth minutes are equal to 1 day in Hell. The closest to an accurate calculation of the passage of time in Hell compared to Earth. Don’t ask me if I’m okay, because the answer is, I’m not sure anymore lmao

I don’t even know if this has been done before, but I’m here to enlighten you anyways. If you read all this congratulations. And thank you for sticking around—potentially also witnessing my mental breakdown in the process 😅😂

Good day.

[vtscasefiles]

Case File # 321-5

Trigger warning: blood, gore, violence, death, firearms, injury, rape mention

Case begun: 5/09/20**

Case Concluded: 5/11/20**

Case Locale: [REDACTED], Florida

Marked as Closed

I arrived in Florida, the humidity already fucking with my sinuses. How anyone can live in this swampy shithole I will never understand. But I was offered a job, and my bank account was practically beating me over the head with it’s need to be filled. The pay was too good to turn down, so I loaded up my gear and headed out.

What I wasn’t expecting was a fucking ghost pirate. I mean, of all things, how fucking cliché can you get? The client, Rosie [REDACTED], welcomed me with that famed “southern hospitality” that I’ve heard so much of.

“You the girl with the gun? I expected you to be bigger.”

Fuckin’ peachy. “Yes. I’m the girl with the gun. You got a haunting problem?” I replied, trying not to let my irritation get the better of me. I’m fucking 5′9″. I’m not that small. For fuck’s sake, I can bench two hundo with no problem. Why the -- 

[Editor’s note: this continues for fifteen minutes. For your convenience I have removed VT’s rant.]

After getting a brief rundown of the case, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Everything pointed to a simple haunting, it wasn’t something I was considering a challenge, or even something that’d take longer than a few hours.

After doing this job, you think you’ve seen just about all the SC* has to offer. My two best friends are a lich and a witch. Yes, they rhyme, shut up. Point being is that I have never seen a haunting manifest on such a massive scale. Usually it’s restrained to a building, or a patch of land, but this...the whole fucking coast line was haunted. It wasn’t even a Cluster**, it was one. Singular. Spirit.

My first day, as the usual, was spent at the library. The spirit in question, one Captain Fresni, was an infamous pirate in the seventeen hundreds. Played a role in the American Revolution, albeit a small one. According to the books I’d found (mostly useless, but I did manage to glean some insight), his ship The Crooked Jess, was riddled with canon fire by the British. Captain Fresni, a violent fighter if ever there was one, realized there was no way out...lit every barrel of gunpowder he had on board and rammed his ship into the oncoming fleet. The following explosion wiped out three ships, packed with soldiers and set fire to another six.

I was impressed. If the spirit was Captain Fresni, as Rose claimed, then it could simply be a case of the body dying so suddenly and violently that the spirit didn’t realize he was dead. There was one passage that stood out, I won’t repeat it due to it being hella long, but in summation it stated that near the southern tip of Florida there was a hidden cove that served as the pirate captain’s base. Might as well start there.

It was around 9pm on the tenth before I even stepped foot in the cove. Immediately, the air changed. Despite it being disgustingly humid, the air turned frigid and dry. I walked up and down the coast to find a spot that wasn’t freezing, but to no avail. The whole place was a spook zone. We’re talking a good three hundred acres of land completely under the spirit’s influence. Even by a Cluster’s standards, that’s a massive area.

This area was mostly undisturbed, being a historical site. Being in the profession I am, meant that didn’t mean a roasty pile of dogshit. If I got caught disturbing anything here, it only meant one thing: prosecution, if not a bullet through my head. I’m aware of what my ethnic background means; prejudice, racism, outright hate. Hell, it’s dangerous to drive, let alone stand somewhere that I shouldn’t. So I try to be subtle. Try not to pack too much ordinance. Today I only had my duffel bag full of Elinor’s*** special ammo. I’d say it “kills” ghosts, but you can’t kill a spirit. You can however, force it to reconcile with it’s past.

The worst part about this job was I was going to wind up in the water. I hate swimming. Forget what chlorine does to the dye in my hair (red. Blood red. Always.), but just the thought of driving across the country with my clothes soaked in salty water was already putting my teeth on edge. Looks like I’d be hitting a thrift shop on the way home.

I dropped my duffel bag on the beach and sat in the sand next to it, pulling off my dad’s old combat jacket and stowing it inside. I did a quick inventory. I hadn’t brought anything major. Salt. Blessed water (courtesy of Ramona****). A black beeswax candle and, my trusty companion, Peace.

Peace is the name I’ve given to my custom-made revolver. All together, the setup weighs about three pounds. Each part bears a custom engraving that’ll combat just about any supernatural force...even so, there are some things that Peace can’t solve...even with the right ammo. But I had one solution sitting in the backseat of my car: a can of kerosene. If bullets don’t solve the problem, a liberal application of fire will.

The time was midnight, the opening of the “Witching Hour”. I had until 3am to get something. Anything. The spirit wasn’t answering to any of the usual callouts (their name, questions, requests for an audience), so I settled in on the beach to doze. Wasn’t much else to do.

Mother fucker, I wish I hadn’t.

When I woke up, it was to the freezing cold iron around my wrists. The bob and weave that told me I was on the sea. The air smelled of something...something that every fucking time I smell it, I almost lose my lunch.

Corpses.

The deck outside my cell was slick with blood and viscera. I’ve seen my share of gore, don’t get me wrong, but this was a massacre. What was worse...it looked (and smelled) fresh. The good captain had been busy, it’d seemed. What began as a simple haunting was quickly turning into something more sinister. Rosie hadn’t mentioned that the spirit was violent...though I should have assumed, given the amount posted on the job. Even still, this was...a little more than I’d prepared for.

But first there was the matter of the shackles on my wrists.

Lockpicking is an artform that every PE invests time in learning. But that’s usually deadbolts or doors made post 1970. The manacles on my wrists (though they looked brand new) were easily something seen in the eighteenth century. There was even a maker’s mark next to one of the keyholes. I’ll spare you the details on how I got out, but my thumbs ache to all hell.

The second I laid hands on the bars to my cell, they swung open...I’d never been locked in. This worried me. The spirit wanted me free...the manacles were just a precaution. Each step I made was met with the squishy splort of combat boot on viscera. I took my time, as I didn’t relish the thought of slipping and falling into the mess beneath my boots. Proud to say that I didn’t fall. Not once.

[Editor’s note: judging by the stains on VT’s clothes, she fell.]

As far as I could tell, I was on the lowest deck. The stairway didn’t lead up into the fresh air of day, but rather into what I assumed was a galley. Tables and benches had been scattered, and cooking implements rusted on their hooks. Dangling from one of those hooks was my firearms...just waiting for me.

I expected a trap, I anticipated the trap. By that I mean I picked up a piece of busted bench and hurled it at my gun. It fell off the hook with a loud clatter which had me willing myself to fade into the shadows. Nothing. Nothing but the creak and groan of the ship.

Well, I say nothing, but I distinctly heard laughter from the top deck. Feminine, bright laughter. I picked my gun up off the floor, holstered it and climbed the stairs.

There was no ghost crew, as I’d anticipated...but at the helm was a sight that still gives my heart a jolt. It’s no secret that I’m gay. I love women. But what I saw at the helm...fuck me, sideways. She was tall. 6′6″ if she was an inch. Her raven hair captured the moonlight and practically sucked it in. Her breasts were bared to the wind, heavy tattoos that seemed to glow covered just about every inch of bared flesh. I’d have thought her living if not for one thing: her eyes. Pitch black like the void.

“Ahoy, mate.” she purred, setting my teeth to clench. “Found you on my little hideaway, snoozin’ like an infant. Come to join Captain Fresni’s crew, little pet?”

“I ain’t your pet.” I snapped, glowering up at the spirit. “You’ve been killing people, Captain...and everything I’ve read says that you’re a man. Are you actually Captain Fresni, or is that just some title you picked up?”

“Funny how men’ll give the most vicious fighters a cock in death that they never had in life, hm?” the pirate snickered. I took notice then that her arms were like two thick pythons that, any other time, I’d like to see just how much weight they could hold. “I offered my services to old Georgie and he thought me funny. At least until I broke his nose.”

“Georgie? As in Washington?”

“Ye know of him? Interesting. He refusing the afterlife, too?”

Everything I’d assumed about this spirit was wrong. Captain Fresni wasn’t a man, for one. Not to mention she knew very well that she was dead. That still didn’t answer the most pertinent question on my mind. “The bodies...or what’s left of them. Was that you?”

“Aye.” she smiled, wickedly, but offered no further explanation. I was being baited.

“Can I ask why?”

“Ye just did.” a hard spin of the wheel almost sent me tumbling. “But I suppose I can oblige a pretty little thing like you.” I fucking hate being demeaned. And all attraction for this undead bitch was flying out the window faster than you could say “eat my ass”. 

I can’t remember most of her explanation. Looking back, now...it’s like the whole of that night is just a drunken fever dream. What stands out to me is her reasoning. “I only murder the dregs, girlie. Rapists, mostly. Kidnappers. Violence done to women is met with brutal retaliation. It’s the simplest way to clean up this world, savvy?”

Oh, I was savvy. Quite savvy. If anything, I agreed with her and her method. Trash like that shouldn’t be allowed to breathe, let alone exist. “If that’s all you’re doing, Cap, then I see no reason we shouldn’t go our separate ways. You have your work and I have mine.”

“Aye? And just what is your work, lovely?” I didn’t detect any further demeaning playfulness...only curiosity.

“I’m a PE. A Paranormal Eliminator. Usually, I’d have to ask or make you pass on, but as it stands...I think we can say live and let live. Well...live and let un-live.” she’d laughed at that. A warm sound that had my guts twisting around my stomach like some sort of horny serpent.

“So, you came out all this way to end the dread Captain Fresni...only to find a kindred spirit, is that what I’m hearing?” she asked, grinning like the Cheshire Cat with a Glasgow grin. “And now you want to leave, just like that. Don’t a get a kiss or a nice romp? I think I’m owed something after all. I didn’t kill you for trespassing.”

That raised my hackles. Again, this pillar of muscle was underestimating me. What I’d fought, what I’d killed. For fuck’s sake, I’ve killed enough Wendigos to put half the men in my profession to shame. There was that weird case where the woman who hired me was fucking the Wendigo, but...that’s another story for another time.

[Editor’s Note: We’ve never discussed the Wendigo-coitus case. I sincerely want to hear it.]

“Fuck you. You got the drop on me, like a coward.” I regretted the words the instant they left my mouth. I was on her ship and at her mercy. She could sink this ship and I had no idea which way shore was...let alone the hazards that went with swimming in open water.

Instead she’d only laughed. “Little girl, I’m a pirate. I’ve no intent to fight head on when I can sneak up on someone. Honor is a man’s game. It’s what gets them killed, more often than not.” Again, I agreed. I’d put enough bullets in the back of a head to know that stealth is preferable than a face-to-face fight.

“Look, I lost my temper. Can we just...end this and I can go home? We both agree on your method, and I see no reason to stop what you’re doing. Sure, the “authority” of the living world won’t like it...but no one likes them, so they can eat a steaming pile of shit.” I said, frowning. “I don’t want a fight. I just want to get paid and go home.”

The look about the spirit changed, marginally. The tattoos seemed to be rippling along her flesh(?) and her smile faded into a frown. “Missy, we still have a glaring problem we’ve yet to address. I’m one woman...and I need a crew. So, unless you’ve got a solution to that particular snag, you’re it.”

All my like for this spirit (begrudging as some of it was) vanished in an instant. “So I’m being kidnapped.” I responded, feeling my heart start to hammer in my ears. “Just like those men you killed. So, what I’m hearing is, you’re no better.”

“Watch your words, girl. Your pretty face won’t save you from my blade.” she’d snarled. It took all that was in me not to balk, though my teeth desperately wanted to chatter.

“I’m using your own words against you, Captain.” I responded, hoping I sounded calmer than I felt. “Don’t blame me if they don’t line up the way you want.”

“One more word out of you -- “

“I’ll give you two: get. Fucked.” that had torn it. The rippling gave way to something that I’d come to expect. This was no run of the mill spirit: Captain Fresni was either a wraith or a revenant. The only real difference between the two was the level of violence capable. A wraith tends to hunt one person, or their family. A revenant hunts whoever they want...and now I was on the list. I couldn’t fight her here, not out in the open. She’d tear me to shreds. Already her jaw was gaping, revealing razor teeth. Her nails, cut short, were lengthening into something akin to talons...and believe me when I say those things hurt. 

I feel no shame in saying I sprinted below deck and ducked into the galley proper. I wish I hadn’t. She wasn’t just killing people, she was eating them. Body parts, half chewed, dangled from the ceiling and littered the ground. My hand clapped over my mouth and nose to keep the smell out and my dinner in. I heard her footsteps and, as silently as I could manage, I checked my firearm. Peace was still locked, cocked and ready to rock. Well, not cocked. Gun safety, kids.

I pulled one of Elinor’s special bullets out of the cylinder. What made these so special is that, instead of lead, bone served as the projectile. The easiest way to deal with something dead is by using something dead against it. I don’t ask where Elinor gets her bone, and I think I’ll be perfectly happy to continue not knowing.

[Editor’s note: I know. It’s horrific.]

“Little pet, little pet, where are you?” she crooned. Well, I say crooned...more like...rattled. A revenant’s physiology is strange, but once they reveal their form it’s almost as if their bodies begin to decay. I peeked around the corner to see her back facing me. I took aim and...nothing. My gun clicked loud enough to sound like a scream in an empty hallway, but no roar of igniting gunpowder. She turned and...smiled. I think. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” I responded, standing on shaking legs. “Soup’s on, Captain.” she ran at me, talons held out at her sides like sabers. I did the only sane thing I could think of: I ducked as she swung. Luckily, the big swing didn’t hit me. Unluckily, she had another hand. Claw. Whatever.

So, there I was, a talon embedded in my shoulder and blood gushing from the wound like a waterfall. A little known fact about revenant wounds: leave the talon in. If it’s withdrawn the wound will immediately fester and become gangrenous. A lot of PEs have died that way.

I slammed the barrel of my gun against the base of her claw and it snapped off. She screamed her pain and rage and took another swipe at my torso. I barely managed to get far enough back in time. The fact I had to compensate for a long talon still imbedded in my shoulder didn’t mean much, as I was operating off a cubic fuckload of adrenaline. She did however manage to shred my tanktop. Which sucked, because I loved that thing. Said “Boss Ass Bitch” on it and everything...I guess I could see if Ramona would make me another one...

[Editor’s note: RIP tank top. Ramona is making another one at the time of writing.]

I sprinted past her, she’d over balanced and given me time to escape. I went down, back to the cells. I was soaked in a cold sweat by now and thankful that my hair tie had held, despite my panicked movement. I smoothed the strands away from my sweat soaked face and looked for a place to hide. Nothing was presenting itself...but an idea struck. It was a stupid idea. A terrible idea. I ran into a cell and pressed my back to the wall.

When Fresni reappeared, she was smiling. “Ran out of room to run, little rat?”

“Seems that way.” I panted. My head was spinning from the loss of blood. Thankfully, that brief moment I spent pressed against the wall had redoubled my courage...and helped me remember one little fact. “Look, Cap...I’m dead. We both know it. The second this talon is removed, my life is over...so...I guess I’m askin’ if that place on your crew is still available.”

That shocked her, if only for a moment. “You can’t lie your way out of this one.”

“No lie. Kill me now. I’d rather just go ahead and get it over with, thanks.” I said, praying that this would work. If it didn’t well...you wouldn’t be seeing this, would you?

She approached, brandishing those eight inch talons. She clicked them together, thoughtfully. “Stand still, then.” she snarled as I held my breath. “One through the heart, and it’s all over.”

Three more steps. Two. One. I stepped in and latched onto her arm, and...I bit down. I felt fetid blood fill my mouth and choke me. I immediately began to gag and then...voided my stomach, all over my aggressor.

A revenant’s true power isn’t from the change they make, though it definitely looks it. A revenant is best known for it’s insidious way of making the unreal real...so long as its concentration remains undisturbed.

When I finally finished tossing my cookies, I looked up. No ship in sight. Just a revenant, me and glorious land. The sand was disturbed, probably from all my running, and my blood left trails showing my passage. I’d been running in circles for the last hour...while she just watched.

“Shouldn’t play with your food.” I coughed, wiping my mouth. “It’s how you get killed.” she screeched in rage, her partially coagulated blood oozing from the bite mark I’d left. The talon was still lodged in my shoulder. I reached for my gun, ready to put an end to this only to pull out... “A fucking banana? Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

She roared and charged. My weapon, my baby was strapped to the rotten leather of her belt. She’d touched it. No one touched my weapon except Ray***** and myself. Not even Ramona. 

That pissed me off in a way that nothing else does.

Naturally, I charged straight for her. She took a swipe with her injured arm, but instead of dodging out of the way, I leapt into it. She made contact, but only with her palm. I felt one of my ribs crack and gasped in pain, pure instinct was the only thing that drove my fist into the shredded flesh on her arm, courtesy of my teeth. She balked and I snatched.

Peace was in my hand, albeit barely. She noticed and lunged again, sending us both into the sand. Her pirate nature showed in the way her head collided with my nose, sending fresh gouts of blood over the both of us. She thought me stunned. An easy kill. She thought wrong.

“Any last words, my pretty?” she cackled, her maw open wide. She wasn’t just going to kill me...I’d pissed her off enough that she was going to bite me. My death wouldn’t just be painful, but slow...and my soul would erode right along with my body.

“Yeah.” I croaked, feeling the end of my stamina quickly approaching. “Choke on it.” I rammed Peace as hard as I possibly could into that gaping maw, hearing her gargle in rage around it. My wrist jerked as I fired once, twice, three times. Bam. Bam. Bam. A faint gargle, a twitch...and about two-hundred pounds collapsed on right on my cracked rib, finishing the job her arm had started and broke the damned thing.

I wheezed beneath the re-corpse for...ten, fifteen minutes? When I finally managed the strength to push her off of me, I immediately emptied the last three rounds into the ruined mess of her skull. Say what you will about my methodology, but I like to be thorough. 

It wouldn’t have done just to leave her body there, for a mundane to see. The SC likes it’s secrecy and to risk exposing it? There was no faster way to end a career than to leave a loose end behind. I made the long trek back to the car and returned with the kerosene can. I stood by the raging fire until there was nothing but ash and blackened bone...though I know a certain lich who could make use of revenant bone.

All in all, a happy ending. Had a vampire doc fix up my shoulder to avoid dying of infection. Rosie paid me what I was owed and Elinor bought the bone off of me for further profit. Sure, my shoulder still hurts so damned bad that I can barely lift it, but...thanks to Ramona, it’ll be healed up in no time. Probably.

Yo-ho-ho, mother fucker. Case closed.

Editor’s farewell: This is the first case file VT asked I upload. It’s one she’s particularly proud of and one with a satisfactory ending. There may be names or terminology that you are unfamiliar with, but I have taken the time to star each of them as to explain. They are as follows:

SC*: Supernatural Community. This is self explanatory. Includes all beings, regardless of death, undeath or birth. IE vampires, ghosts, revenants, werewolves

Cluster**: A colloquial term amongst PEs. Used in reference to a small locale with a massive collection of spirits. Usually all working as a coordinated group.

Elinor***: Elinor Lyktor. Lich. Proprietress of Ellie’s, a shop frequented by PEs for their gear. Specializes in Osteomancy.

Ramona****: Ramona Torrez. Witch. A close friend of VT’s. Offers support, healing and consultation. A good 75% of VT’s equipment is blessed by Ramona.

Ray*****: Raleigh Kane. Gunsmith. Took the name Ray from her father, proprietress of Ray’s Armory. Forced into the Supernatural Community by VT during a case. Since, she has dedicated her craft to making weapons to deal with the malignant forces that threaten the community as a whole. Extensively researches customers and will not sell her works to those she does not trust.

[script-a-world]

hello. i want to write a story set in a very religious place. like fanatic level of religious. in my mind, this place is ruled by what the church says but has a "cover" figure to "connect" with the people. the people of this place are devoted to their religion, meaning they know passages, go to mass, and shun those who don't support it. here is my question: how does one go about creating a religion that feels real? what do i need to take into consideration (i'm not religious myself).

Mod Miri Note: At the same time this came in we also received from the google form the question “How do I world build a religion?” I can’t confirm they’re the same anon, but we’re combining them for the answer.

Brainstormed: You seem to have a very… narrow perception of religion? If you aren’t religious yourself and you’re (presumably) from a Western culture, it makes sense that the Christian church and more specifically Catholicism are your go-to images of hyperreligion. Saying “mass” and “church” and “passages” kind of gives away the fact that you’re trying to base your religion off of at least your idea of an Abrahamic religion, but I’d ask you to reconsider. Right now it sounds like you’re trying to create a negative critique of these religions, and even if that is what you’re going for, you need to do a lot of research on their theology, history, and practices before you can do so with any competence.

I’d suggest doing some basic research on types of religions, like animism, pantheism, polytheism, general superstition, etc. There are plenty of spiritual worldviews that you might consider way over the top, but whose believers find it more bizarre when people don’t follow their teachings. Fanatics are never fanatics in their own mind, and especially among their own people, but also… fanatic might be a relative term. If you’re approaching this from a nonreligious background, then you might consider X-amount of religion in one’s lifestyle to be fanatic-level. Whereas a person who actively practices religion would consider X-amount to be perfectly normal, and only folks who take it to XX-amount plus some shadier practices are the true fanatics.

Remember, religions start because people want to make sense of the world. There is a deeper feeling of wonder and personhood and power, both within a human being and in the whole world around us, that drives spirituality and generates superstition. Religion, at least to start, is beneficial to people, otherwise no one but sadists would follow its teachings. Now, like anything else, religion can devolve into a means of power hoarding and control of a populace, but only because of the people in charge getting greedy. The vast majority of religions I’ve studied have had radical, freeing, empowering teachings applicable to everybody when they first sprang up, and only later did adherents twist those teachings into societal oppression. If there is no satisfaction or benefit in your religion, there won’t exactly be any incentive for people to follow it so closely, aside from whatever negative consequences occur for those who fall away. And negative consequences aren’t often enough to keep people in a religion. If following religion is more painful than the consequences of leaving it, plenty of people will jump ship.

Religion can also show up in every single part of life. According to Wikipedia:

A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society. William James popularised the concept.

You look up and see a cloud, a spiritual person sees a portent, or a spirit, or a castle where the gods live. You take a break from work for a minute, a spiritual person now has time to mutter a prayer, or observe the mood of the world, or dedicate their work to their god. A person doesn’t have to be anywhere near a fanatic to have their religion be in every part of their life. Especially if they adhere to a more lax spirituality or superstitious worldview instead of an organized religion, the central spiritual experience of religious belief alters the perception of self and surroundings. It isn’t only a set of rules to follow.

It can even help areas of society that modern Western society considers nonreligious! Historically, medicine has always come under religion. Witch doctors, medicine men, witchcraft, even the hygiene laws laid out in the Christian Bible. Physical health has often been considered a reflection of spiritual health, which, in a way, is true! The placebo effect means tending to one’s mental and emotional health with the reassurance of religion will improve one’s physical health as well. Not only that, but the power of a “spiritual experience”, regardless of if you believe the supernatural is real, can cause religious ecstacy, something you might perceive as a serious psychological problem but those who experience it consider to be a deep form of spiritual expression to be treasured and sought after. The spread and preservation of information is also often aided by religion, even though that can change should those in power want to change history or obscure truth for their own reasons. Just look at the history of the printing press and how that was driven by the need for Bibles. Many cultures, most famously Australian Aboriginal peoples, have oral histories thousands of years long that tie in closely to their spirituality.

You also might be confusing religion with cults. If you think all religion is predatory, playing on people’s weaknesses and fears in order to coerce them into a miserable lifestyle of following strict laws and living under control of those in power, you definitely have conflated “religion” and “cult”. If you’d like to worldbuild a cult, go ahead! It’s likely to be smaller and less acceptable than an established organized religion, not very transparent to the outside world nor its members, and have a spirituality that is in fact just a veneer over gaining power, instead of genuine belief and devotion, and may in fact require people to murder or commit suicide. Just look at Scientology, or these, or even Jared Leto, and a more in-depth look from this organization covering many different kinds of cults.

On a more worldbuildy note, are those who practice this religion correct? Does their god(s) exist? Is the supernatural real? If yes, then are they really fanatics if they’ve been right all along? Even if they’re incorrect, the dedication and deep-held beliefs of religious people shouldn’t be mocked wholesale, in my opinion. Make sure to keep some genuine three-dimensional development for characters who are part of this religion, or include other religions with different practices, or the only thing you’ll accomplish is “waaaa religion bad believers dumb”. And if that is the story you want to write, feel free, but I can’t help you there.

Feral: What makes a religion feel real? Sincere faith.

Specifically among the leaders. I mean, sure, those lemming-like peasants who actually believe that superstitious nonsense will have sincere faith, but honestly? There is going to be a higher percentage of people faking it among the masses than among the clergy. Clergy members are generally required to go through rigorous studies and often take vows that can cause great discomfort. I am sure there are those who did it for the power - there are in atheist organizations as well, humans can be crap - but if you actually read the writings of important Church leaders of the past, not to mention rabbis, imams & mullahs, and archakas, you’re going to find that they have sincere faith.

Something you should always keep in mind when developing pre-modern religion in a Western context is that before the advent of modern scholarship, which starts to become a thing in the West during the Renaissance, all the important scholars were clergy. And again, those learned people either had to be really, really dedicated to their power-hungry ambitions or had to have sincere faith.

That does not make religions perfect by any means nor does it mean that the god they have sincere faith in is omnibenevolent (though the qualities of an omnibenevolent god will be strongly dependent on the culture that worships it). And religious leaders are absolutely capable of doing terrible, terrible things even if they profess to worship an omnibenevolent god, and politicians can definitely twist things around to suit their needs (again, this is not exclusive to religiosity). But your ask has this weird given that a major religion (on par with Catholicism/Christianity) in your world is a scam, and while yes, that happens in cults and alternative religions and in splinter groups*, as Brainstormed pointed out that’s just not how, at least, the four major religions of our world got started.

Yes, it’s true that bureaucracies of a certain size and age will inevitably begin to change focus to protecting its own existence. And yes, it’s true that ambitious sociopaths will be drawn to places of authority even if they are difficult to achieve. And yes, it’s true that an individual entering a toxic environment is more likely to be changed by the environment than to change the environment. But guess what! That has nothing to do with whether the organization is religious or not.

Why does a religion exist in the first place? It explains the universe in a pre-modern world; it provides organization and structure for community focus - in other words, many social programs have historically been run through religious organizations and leadership. And it provides hope and comfort in a very scary world.

Some clergy might be able to fake all of that for a little while, but a large bureaucracy with many clerics who are all in on the fake? No. Allow me to rephrase: hell no. People are not dumb. Maybe you believe that of all religious people, but you are wrong and they are not. The people in your world, if they’re anything like the people in our world, are gonna sniff out the bullshit if none of their religious leaders believe what they’re selling. There is a reason Scientology has to keep blackmail files on all its adherents, and I promise you, the Catholic Church does not do that.

*A note on cults, alternative religions, and splinter groups: Cults and alternative religions (their PR friendly name) are “religions” that are scammy and/or actively dangerous to the participants or others: People’s Temple, Branch Davidian, etc. Splinter groups are congregations that start as normal members of a large religion or denomination but its insular culture creates a divide that just takes things a little too far even for the most fanatical of the main sect (think terrorist groups that link themselves to religions). These types of religions might be what you are actually asking about. Groups like these can be highly, highly influential but in a very contained area. What cults often do is the leader settles in an area and buys property and builds a church and maybe a school and then encourages the members to all move either onto the plot of land if it’s large enough or to buy up surrounding land and homes and push out all the non-believers. That area can then be fortified or just have a de facto boundary with the rest of the world. Sometimes a group like this can become large enough to constitute an entire town, but rarely a city - groups that large will more often have centralized compounds but with the members living scattered among non-believers, as Scientology does. Obviously a group concentrated like that will have an impact on local politics, if they are allowed to participate, but it’s not going to go farther than the county line, so to speak. As we all know from the news, splinter groups like ISIS can become very large and globe spanning, but those types of groups have within them splinter groups and factions, and I don’t think that’s what you’re asking about anyway, so I’m just going to leave it there.

But frankly, your ask reads to me as “how do I create a fantasy!Catholic that is secretly evil and will show the audience how evil religion is in the real world? Opiate of the masses!” And my advice is… don’t. Because it lacks compassionate understanding of people of faith (many faiths), it lacks a factual understanding of how world religions differ and function, it totally lacks nuance, and finally, because it is absolutely, monumentally, extremely, really, very cliche.

Maybe the way your ask is coming across to me is totally not how you intended it. Maybe you only used the jargon you used because you assumed we wouldn’t know any other terms and maybe your understanding of world religions is actually quite sophisticated. Maybe you really do have this insanely clever way to spin a tired cliche into some new and original. In these cases, we strongly encourage you to come right back with as jargon-full and specific an ask as you can write, use our submission google form to do it. Otherwise, give our responses some thought and if after you’ve developed your religion, you want to come back with a specific ask other than “how do I world build a religion?” (which is a little too broad), please feel free.

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Jump the Shark- Part 2

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,329

Warnings: typical supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

Looking at the framed picture of Adam and John wearing baseball caps, you knew this guy wasn’t lying. This might be hard for Sam, but it was devastating for Dean. He looked up to the man his entire life, and you never knew about this.

“He took you to a baseball game?” Dean asked as if he’d been punched in the gut.

“Yeah, when I turned fourteen. Dad was around for a few of my birthdays,” Adam nodded. Sam flipped through John’s journal before reading one of the passages.

“September twenty-ninth, two thousand four. One word. ‘Minnesota’,”

“He took you to a fucking baseball game?” Dean asked, still hung up on that.

“Dean,” you whispered, putting a hand on his chest to at least calm him down before sliding that down to his hand and taking it gently. Adam noticed this but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” Adam took back the picture and put it back where he got it from, “why? What'd Dad do with you on your birthday?”

“Adam, you said you called Dad because your mom was missing,” Sam said, trying to steer the topic off John being a shitty father to the three of you. “How long has she been gone?”

“Three days.”

“Who was the last person to see her?” Dean asked in a much calmer voice.

“Mr. Abbinanti, our neighbor. He saw her come home Tuesday night, but she never showed up to work on Wednesday,” he explained, but you noticed something behind the kid. A picture of John and Adam’s mom, Kate. She looked a lot like Mary in this photo which made you think John impregnated her for other reasons.

“Did you call the police?” Sam asked, bringing you back to reality.

“Mom's supervisor at the hospital did, and then I drove down here as fast as I could,” he paused. “I should have been here.”

“What'd the, uh, what'd the cops say?” Dean asked distractedly, having seen the same picture as you.

“That they, uh, they searched the house. They didn't find anything. She wouldn't leave without telling anybody. It's like she just dropped off the face of the earth, you know?”

“Adam, you mind showing us her room? Or wherever she disappeared from?” you asked and he nodded. Following him up the stairs, you brought Dean along since you were still holding his hand. Sam went a different direction, but you took Dean to her room. Adam wanted to know what Sam was up to, so he followed him once he pointed to the right room. Now that you two were alone, you could talk to him.

“Dean,” you sighed. He walked over to the dresser to see two pictures: one of Adam, Kate, and John and another one of Kate with a very young Adam.

“It’s not fair,” he sighed.

“I know,” you said as you kissed his shoulder, but heard a creak come from behind you. Both of you turned around to see Adam standing there with his hands in his jacket pockets.

“The, uh, nightstand was knocked over. Was there anything else?” Dean asked.

“Oh, not really. The sheriff said there's no sign of a break-in,” Dean scoffed lightly at that. “What, you think the cops missed something?”

“Maybe. Yeah. They don't have our eyes,” Dean motioned to you.

“You're both mechanics,” Adam said, confused.

“Yeah. That's right,” Dean nodded.

“Dean, Y/N, what else can you tell me about Dad?”

“You knew him,” Dean said sternly which made you sigh.

“Not as well as you two.”

“Trust me, kid, you don’t want to know,” you said. Sam appeared by the door and showed off the bunch of papers in his hand.

“Give us a minute,” Dean said as he started to leave. Going to follow them, Adam stopped you before you could join them.

“I thought we were all a family,” he said as he walked to the bed before sitting down.

“We are.”

“You just kissed his shoulder, and you were holding his hand.”

“I’m not their biological sister. Not even adopted,” you sighed as you sat next to him. “I met them when I was 5, and we became fast friends. He’s my boyfriend of almost 3 years now. My mom died of a… break in, and I came home from school to see her dead. John took me in. He was like my dad since he raised me from the age of 8.

“I’m sorry about Dean, but when it comes to John, he can get sensitive. John wasn’t the best dad, but he tried, you know? You have the best memories of him according to these pictures. I don’t want to ruin that.”

Before Adam could say anything about what you just said, Dean and Sam came back into the room with one of them holding a picture of a man.

“Hey, does your mom know Joe Barton?” Dean asked.

“Uh, I don't think so. Why?” Dean sighed and looked at Sam who didn’t say anything with his mouth. Giving Sam back the picture, he turned to say something when he noticed something on the floor by the bed.

“What is it?” you asked.

“Watch out,” he said, making both you and Adam to get off the bed. He flipped up the mattress to see what was underneath when you noticed the scratch marks on the ground. “Give me a hand with the mattress.” Grabbing the end of it, you helped maneuver it off the bed before noticing a vent on the ground. Why a vent would be on the ground, you would never know.

“Adam does this vent lead downstairs?” you asked.

“Yeah.” Looking at Sam and Dean, they were about to do rock/paper/scissors to see who would go down there when you placed your hands on both of their fists.

“I will go down there. Much like dumbwaiter thing, I am the only one who fits. I won’t let you suffer since it will be a tight fit,” you said as you moved the bedframe out of the way. Dean handed you his gun and was about to hand you the flashlight when you shook your head.

“Won’t need it.”

“Isn’t it going to be dark down there?” Adam asked.

“I have excellent vision,” you said, not saying anything about your magic. Opening the vent, you sighed before going head first. Peeking in to see if there were two paths, you were glad to only find one. It made it a lot easier. Grunting, you placed the gun on the ground before slithering inside.

Once inside, you held Dean’s gun in front of you, and formed a magic ball to light your way. It floated near your face as you maneuvered, making it the perfect flashlight. Looking at the walls, you saw smears of blood, and hoped you wouldn’t come across a dead body in here.

Slithering down the vent, you came across a T-junction, and looked to the right to see the end of the vent that was downstairs. Taking a deep breath, you hesitantly looked to the left and regretted it immensely. There was a large amount of blood splattered everywhere with huge and small chunks of flesh and bone. Putting a hand to your mouth, you moved your body to the vent before smashing it open.

“Dean!!” you yelled, hoping he could hear you from here.

“Did you find something?”

“Come downstairs! Help me out of this vent!” Your magic ball disappeared as soon as you heard three sets of footsteps come down. First, you saw Dean with his brother and half-brother following him. He rushed to you before taking your hand, slowly pulling you out. When your right foot was freed, you braced yourself until the other one came out, and you used Dean’s body as a support system while you found your balance.

“Did you find anything in there?” Adam asked.

“Here,” you sighed as you handed Dean his gun. Walking over to Adam, you placed your hands on his shoulders. Something didn’t feel right when you made contact, but there were more pressing matters to deal with. “I need you to call the police.” As soon as you said that, both brothers used the couch below to look into the vent, seeing what you stumbled upon.

“Why? What did you find?” Adam panicked.

“Adam, call the police.”

It took a few tries to get Adam to listen to you, and by the time he was off the phone, you and the brothers were gone. The police are something you didn’t want to tangle with. With what happened with Victor Henriksen, you were lucky he was so understanding.

Back at the motel, you and Dean were trying to keep busy so he decided to clean guns. Nothing was said between the three of you, but you wanted to talk so damn badly. Taking that call might have been the worst thing for the family. Sighing, you moved onto the next gun when someone knocked on the door. Sam got up to answer it, and when he opened the door, Adam busted in.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Take it easy,” Sam began, and you hastily put a cloth over the guns.

“No, don't tell me to take it easy, okay? My house is a crime scene, my mom's probably dead, and you three—well, you tell me to call the cops, but you got to bail before they show? So, who are you really?” Adam demanded to know. “Cops didn't know where to look for my mom, Dean, but you did. And I heard you talking earlier—something about grave robberies. You're not mechanics. I just want to know what's going on. Please.”

“We’re hunters,” Sam revealed after a thick silence.

“Sammy!” Dean growled.

“He deserves to know, Dean.”

“What do you mean, 'hunters'?”

“Do you believe in witches?” you asked as you stood up. “Vampires? Demons? Any kind of monsters?” It took a long time to actually tell Adam what your life was like, but he didn’t ask too many questions. The only part you left out was you being a witch. Somehow, you thought it wouldn’t bide well. By the time Sam was done telling Adam, you and Dean were sitting at the table by the window while they sat on the beds.

“Okay, so... basically, you're saying that every movie monster, every nightmare that I’ve ever had, that's all real?”

“Godzilla's just a movie,” Dean spoke.

“We hunt them. So did Dad.”

“Okay,” Adam nodded.

“Okay? That's it?” you asked with a scoff.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“That we're liars, that we're crazy. Nobody just says ‘okay’.”

“Well, you're my brothers, and not sister. You're telling me the truth, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded.

“Then I believe you. Now, what took my mom?”

“We're not sure. Something's in town stealing bodies, living and dead, but we don't know what.”

“There's a long list of freaks that fit the bill,” you sighed.

“You think maybe she might still be alive?” Adam asked which made the brothers look down.

“That rarely happens, Adam. Not a lot of monsters like to keep their victims alive for long.”

“Oh,” he nodded as he looked down. “How can I help?”

“You can’t,” Dean answered quickly.

“This thing killed my mom. If you're hunting it, I want in.”

“No.”

“Dean, look, maybe—”

“Maybe what?” Dean snapped as he got up, carrying John’s journal.

“He lost his mother. Maybe we can understand what that feels like.”

“Why do you think Dad never told us about this kid, Sam? Huh? Why do you think he ripped out the pages?”

“He was protecting him, Sam,” you said as you got up.

“Dad's dead, Dean.”

“That doesn't matter! He didn't want Adam to have our lives, okay? And we are gonna respect his wishes.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Adam asked.

“No!” you and the brothers said. Dean scoffed before heading to the door, grabbing his coat.

“Babysit the kid.”

“Where are you going?” you asked.

“I'm going out!” Dean yelled as he left. Looking at Sam and Adam, you followed in his footsteps, grabbing your jacket on the way out.

“Dean! Wait!” you jogged to catch up to him.

“We shouldn’t have come, Y/N. This was a mistake,” Dean sighed shakily. “Dad was supposed to be there for you, me and Sam. Instead, he knocked up some woman and decides he’s going to be father of the year with him? Are we not good enough?”

Seeing Dean like this broke your heart, but you let him get it out in the first place. He needed to rant which is what you were providing.

“Dean, he loved us.”

“Did he? Or were we just a reminder of all the death in the family?”

“John didn’t deserve you,” you said as you grabbed his hands. “You were, and are, the best son a father could as for. I’m sorry John didn’t get to see that.”

“I need to do something to get my mind off this.”

“John came here for a reason, yeah? Why don’t we check out the cemetery where those three bodies were missing? I’m sure the crypt or grave is somewhere around here.”

“Yeah,” he nodded as you two got into the car. Once away from the hotel, Dean spoke up once more about a different matter.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Why?”

“Those nightmares you’ve been having? Sam and I see it happening,” he said which made you sigh. Everything in you was telling you to come clean, but you couldn’t do that.

“They’re no big deal. Our whole life is a living nightmare. It’s just coming out in weird ways through my dreams.”

“Okay, but I meant what I said.”

“I know,” you smiled as you scooted closer to him. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he wrapped his other arm around your shoulders to hold you close.

Wanna get tagged? Add yourself to this document! If your tag doesn’t work, find out why!

@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr@caseykitten6@quixoticcat@notmoose45@crowleysminion@mina22@tahbehonest@destielsangelss@oreosatmidnight @seninjakitey@flyonlittlewinchester@earthtokace@gingersnapped13@gucci-tata @22sarah08@superrandomnatural @my-wayward-heroes@supernaturallover2002 @teamfreewillsstuff@gh0stgurl @put-my-favorite-record-on@onlydeanandjensen @bloodyvoodoo @morgannope@death-unbecomes-you@redsalv20@unfortunately-a @deans-baby-momma @drakonwild@infinite-supernatural-adoring@analisespn @essie1876 @kdfrqqg@blackcherrywhiskey@mogaruke@wittysunflower @li-ssu @kristaparadowski @mizzezm@the-walking-daryl@supernatural13-13 @posiemax@shortbty14 @paintballkid711@phantomalchemist@gabrielslittleangel@shatteredabby@jennalyncarrigan1230@winchesterandpie @andi-mendes-barnes@tricksterdean @akshi8278 @whit85-blog@kendlemariee @jennazeise@kendall-michele@mrspeacem1nusone @ballistic-bailey@thehall0wqueeen@stylesismyhubs @lizbester

[madartiste]

Deadly Fortune, Book 2, Chapter 00-1 - 15

The chapter numbering for the second book is a little weird because there are a couple 00 numbered chapters that take place before the game starts.  It’s mainly stuff for Lady and what she was up to that led her to encounter the Order of the Sword.

Everything is under the cut again.

Link to the translation: https://originaldmc.github.io/DivinityStatue/Downloads.html

Link to the previous section of Notes: https://madartiste.tumblr.com/post/186824600040/deadly-fortune-book-1-chapters-6-11

Stage 00-1 (Before the game -- Lady encounters the Order)

We get some Lady!  She's hunting a demon (naturally).  She hears a weird noise that sounds more like a machine than a human or a demon.  Lady calls out a warning because she doesn't want to accidentally shoot a person.  They don't respond to her, so she decides to shoot anyway, and one of the Bianco Angelos blocks the rocket with its shield.  She asks if they got lost on their way to a costume party.  Though they don't answer, their posture tells Lady they're definitely listening to her. Interestingly, they don't attack her even though she attacked first, but they're still insanely strange and refuse to say or do anything to respond to her.

So she shoots them again.  They scuffle a bit, she notices they've got some good gear since the armor can fly and they have motorized spears.  She lands a hit and notices there is no blood. Apparently there are sometimes demons with no bodies, though it's very rare, and they can possess things -- 'Like old dolls or torture instruments' (wow).  Items with significant emotional attachment to humans are their favorite shells.  Lady considers that while medieval armor could possibly be possessed, this armor seems like it is far too new in construction.  She also thinks that she's seen the crest that the knights are wearing before but can't remember.

Lady beats the first Bianco Angelo, noticing the blue-white lights that dissipate out of it, and is about to take some of the armor when more show up and surround her.  There's a nice part where she thinks that when she was younger, she'd probably pick a fight with them, but now that she's more experienced, she understands her limitations better.  She also notices they caught the demon she was after -- it has wings and a face like a dog according to her.   Deciding that she doesn't like her odds, Lady hops on her bike after distracting the knights with her rocket launcher.  She finds the situation strange, since they definitely could give chase but don't, and wonders why these demons possessing the armor are hunting other demons.

Stage 12 (Credo dies)

Nero is starting to lose himself inside the Savior.  At first he feels completely calm and comfortable, but he can't remember who he is and can't move.  After a moment, he remembers that he has to save someone.  

Dante thinks of Mundus when he sees the Savior fly off.  He comments that the bad guys have similar patterns.  

Credo wakes up, and Dante does not care about his condition -- which seems harsh, but Dante further ruminates that Credo is a proud guy who wouldn't want sympathy from his enemy.  He also is pretty sure Credo is dying.  Dante correctly realizes that the plan is to open the gate to the underworld so that Sanctus can play hero.  He's not impressed.

Dante thinks this is just like Temen-ni-gru, though that was built by humans.  He's not overly concerned about the whole thing because 'the passage to the devil world is only a little longer.'  (Not sure exactly what that means.)  He also expresses that he doesn't like it when people tell him what to do or try to give him tasks, though he admires Credo's resolve and that he's managed to hold on to his humanity despite becoming a demon.

The way Credo dissolves when he dies isn't typical for a demon, and Dante thinks it's because of Credo's convictions.  He thinks 'This must be the way angels sacrificed.'

Dante and Trish only took this job for entertainment which is why they didn't take it seriously.  But now they feel obligated to fulfill Credo's dying request.  Dante particularly finds humans who use demons to be abhorrent, and he wants to put an end to the Order.  There's a line about him not being young anymore and that he's seen a lot of stuff, but Credo's death touched his heart.  

Stage 00-2 (Before the game -- Lady learns about the Order)

Lady goes to a collector of supernatural items named John.  It seems she doesn't like him much, and his smile creeps her out.  There's a note that 'John swayed like a bald-headed man.'  Whatever that means.  She shows them the coat of arms (the Order's symbol).  He says he knows what it is, but doesn't tell her, so Lady bribes him with some 'devil's blood.'  She dislikes all the collectors because they try to flaunt their knowledge to her.  Also hey remind her of Arkham.  

John scoffs at her 'demon blood' because it shouldn't remain in liquid form.  It either evaporates quickly after being spilled or crystallizes.  But she knows better and tells him to "Forget it."  He changes his tune and asks if the blood is real and how it could be liquid.  She explains that if demon blood is poured onto a stone statue in a ritual, it can create a liquid demon called a Blood Bat.  When the Bat is hit with high heat, it turns back into a stone statue, and that what she's got in her vial is part of the Blood Bat.   She offers to let him set fire to the blood since it will turn to stone.  And after a while, it will turn back into a liquid.

John tries out the trick and is super stoked.  He grabs her hand in his excitement -- which she doesn't care for.  John digs into his collection and brings back a book which has the Order's coat of arms on it: "The Teaching Code of the Order of the Sword."  Ooooh, Lady saw the symbol in her father's study when she was a little kid.  The book is about 4-500 years old, though the Order existed before that.

There's a 'Demon Sociology Group'???

John asks her if she wants a more recent book of their teachings, though it'll be a bit hard to get.  He's very, very pleased with her gift, so he's willing to go the extra mile for her this time.  Lady thinks there's something seriously shady happening, so she says yes.

Stage 13 (Dante vs the Blitz)

Agnus has been in the Savior during all this, so he visits Sanctus in the control room.  The Savior has some automatic functions, but needs a human to do the more complex stuff.  He's disappointed in how little Sanctus changed with his transformation, wondering if it's because Sanctus is so old.  (There's a good translator's note that says that Angus considers switching between human and devil forms to be a 'passage to heaven.')

Agnus actually finds himself afraid of Sanctus and realizes it's because the old geezer is juiced full of powerful energy.  He's ashamed of doubting Sanctus.  He thinks that the power of the devil forms is related to the strength of the person's spirit.  Interestingly, Agnus admits he is not a devout believer in Sparda.  He's more interested in studying devils than he is in following Sparda and mainly used his position to satisfy his scientific curiosity.  But seeing Sanctus… he's filled with awe and believes in his vision.

Angus thinks that Sanctus needs a new title because he should rule over not just the human world but the underworld too.  (Good luck with that.)  He calls him "Emperor of the Devil."  Sanctus just laughs and gives him Yamato to go unlock the Hell Gate.  Agnus pauses and asks what Sanctus will do about Dante -- which Sanctus thinks should be easy with the Savior.

Sanctus also seems to plan to blame all the insanity that's about to happen on Dante.  Dante is unpredictable, Agnus worries that they'll be in trouble if they underestimate him.  Aha, Agnus thinks that with Yamato he will have enough strength to beat Dante.  (Is there something about Yamato and making people feel powerful??)  Now that Credo is dead and he is Sanctus' most trusted confidant, Agnus is feeling pretty ballsy.

Back to Dante: Dante clearly smells demons afoot.  There are some funky dark clouds gathering that shoot lightning at a demon.  Oh, the Blitz.  Interesting note: In Dante's experience, if a demon doesn't have eyes or a nose, it usually has some kind of organ that replaces those functions.  Demons without eyes are rare, though the Blitz has really good hearing.

He uses Ebony and Ivory and thinks of Nell Goldstein (awww), remembering her saying that a normal person can't fire their guns like a machine gun -- which is why she designed his guns to handle being fired at an inhuman rate.  Dante considers his guns to be partners.  He also doesn't normally bring other weapons besides the pistols and Rebellion, but he brought along Coyote-A this time.

Rebellion is the first weapon Dante got, and Sparda trained him to fight with a sword.  There's a line about how the sword symbolizes the power to protect a loved one.

Fighting the Blitz, Dante considers that a dying demon's only instinct is destruction, essentially wanting to kill everything around it when it goes.  Hence the Blitz blowing itself up.

Stage 00-3 (Lady hires Dante and Trish)

 Lady is considering what to do about the Bianco Angelos.  They are obviously collecting demons for something, but they don't attack her unless she attacks them first.  She debates about going to Fortuna, but isn't keen on the idea, though if the Angelos keep interfering with her hunts, she's losing money and reputation.  She's chillin' on the sofa in her own room, thinking about what to do.  Demon hunters are pretty rare and scattered around the country, but she knows a few people.  Obviously, the person she thinks can deal with this is Dante.

She actually wonders if Dante is his real name because some people call him Tony -- though she knows this was an old alias.  She heads out to his place, calls his area of town a 'slum.'  Lady strolls into the office without knocking.  She thinks that Dante would eat pizza or drink if he has nothing better to do, and that he eats sundaes like a little kid.

Lady doesn't know too much about Trish, only that she used to be Dante's partner and that she's not human.  Trish is apparently traveling the world right now, but sometimes swings by Devil May Cry.

Dante turns her job down because he's suspicious of Lady's methods -- she sticks him with the damage fees all the time -- but Lady knows he doesn't really take jobs for the money.  He just wants to kill demons. Apparently Trish knows about the Order of the Sword but doesn't say anything.  

Lady has her doubts about Dante really being the son of Sparda, and when she asks him how much he knows, Dante says who can know everything about their dad?  Lady finds the answer strange even for Dante. He gets his interest hooked at the point that Lady says they worship Sparda like a god on Fortuna.  Despite what he'd like, Dante still wants to know about his father.

While she's talking, Trish is picking up the Sparda and some Devil Arms, but Dante doesn't notice.  Lady doesn't care who takes the job.

Stage 14 (Dante vs. Echidna)

Agnus is in the Opera House.  Only a few people know how to get to the Hell Gate under the building.  The secret passage was built way before the Opera House, and Sanctus ordered Agnus to figure out where it was.  The Hell Gate directly under the center of the city. Apparently the space is very creepy. He's excited to see the culmination of his research.

The original Hell Gate developed over time, caused by the 'magical difference between the human world and the underworld.'  The little Hell Gates Agnus made concentrated magical energy in the area, allowing them to open the the Real Hell Gate all at once.

Back to Dante: He sees all the demons spilling out of the big Hell Gate and says "That's… not good."  (Hah!) Even he is apprehensive about dealing with that many demons at once.  He also is worried that they won't be able to save all the people.  

Dante doesn't usually hang on to his Devil Arms.  In fact, he sells them to pay his debts.

He's counting on the Order knights to protect the citizens, so he's focusing on getting back his Devil Arms and closing the small Hell Gates.  Dante is confident he can win, but he knows he can't destroy the Savior with Nero inside since that could kill the poor kid.

In Mitis Forest, the air is so dense with demon energy that a normal person would just pass right out.  Dante literally is looking forward to 'playing' with some tough demons.  

He banters with Echidna, and there's a note that demons who can speak human languages are always chatty and show off.  Dante grabs his Devil Arm before the fight in this.  I guess there's a question if Gilgamesh is a true Devil Arm (which makes a bit of sense since DMC5 says it's actually a special kind of metal from the Underworld.).  Dante Rising Dragon's Echidna and is a bit disappointed that she gets taken out so fast.  It sounds like he gets intensely bored fighting demons and does all his showy moves mainly to entertain himself.

Stage 15 (Dante vs. Dagon)

Lady POV: She's on a boat on her way to Fortuna.  The sailors can't believe she wants to go there with all the crazy stuff going on.  She tells one of them that when she gets there, she'll put a stop to it… probably (she doesn't let them hear that last part).  Three days after she left, Trish sent Lady a letter asking her to come by Fortuna in a month to pick her and Dante up.  Lady gets attacked by a Mephisto. The sailor's name is Ben, and Lady tries to protect him and the ship.

She beats the demon but a ton more show up.  She suggests Ben run to the lifeboat.

Back to Dante: He tries to get frisky with Dagon's ladies who tease him and dart away -- though he's already aware the frog demon is there thanks to the smell.  Dagon has similarly poor human speech, like Bael, that Dante can barely understand.  He also doesn't know who Dante is -- and Dante's disappointed by that. He asks if Dagon is "from the country."

The demon frogs come out of the hell gate before Dante kills Dagon.  He Enemy Steps his way over to the Hell Gate to grab Pandora. To use Pandora's different forms, Dante just has to picture them in his mind.  It was either built by or WAS an 'ordinance worker in the demon world.'  I'm thinking built by because this demon also built a bunch of other guns.  (Was it Machiavelli?  Same guy who made Artemis?)  Pandora can read the 'memory and the imagination' of the user to change into many shapes.  When Trish first saw the Argument form for Pandora, she said Dante is just a big kid.  He admits that he probably got the idea from a comic book or movie but still thinks it's cool.  Also he got hit with the Omen transformation on accident before.  He refers to that as 'tragic consequences.'

Link to the next section of notes: https://madartiste.tumblr.com/post/186847847540/deadly-fortune-book-2-chapters-16-20

[huntertales]

Part Three: You Can’t Fix the Past. (As Time Goes By S08E12)

Episode Summary: Sam, Dean and the reader are surprised when a man who claims to be Henry Winchester, the boys’ grandfather, suddenly appears in their motel room closet demanding to know where he can find John. Henry has time traveled to the future to stop a demon named Abbadon. Through their grandfather, the brothers and the reader learn more about their bloodline and legacy. The reader even learns about her father, Andrew, and his own past that turned him into a demon. Word Count: 5,341. Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

After meeting time traveling grandparents and facing against a demon that tagged along for the ride, you and the boys knew there wasn't much else you could do to make this situation any better. So you decided to do the next best thing to prepare for tomorrow, rent a motel room and call it a night. You didn't realize how much stress of today and riding around for hours put a toll on your body. When you were finally off your feet and doing what you did best, searching for someone that was supposed to be a ghost, you felt somewhat at peace for the first time. Your mind was still buzzing with questions about your father, and while you wanted them answered, you weren't sure how to go about it. And if you really wanted to hear more about his past.

Curiosity killed the cat, your mother would always say when you asked one more question when she told you something that left you wanting to know more. It was always followed by why? How? Sometimes things are best left unsaid. Because when you learn the truth, you can't ever take the emotion it brings out back. It’s forever in your memory, there to haunt you whenever it feels like it, lingering in the depth of your mind. She was right about that from the aspects of your life you’d do anything to forget. But you couldn’t. They were there forever to torment you.

You wondered what she would think if she found out her husband was a lot like her. Someone who knew about the supernatural and supposedly tried to make a better world. Not to mention the small details like having known John's father, being twice her age and being a demon for over a decade. All before being turned into a human again. How? You had no clue. He spent his entire life living a life until his dying breath. So did your mother. They were the perfect couple.

Every so often your eyes wandered away from the laptop screen and the double beds just across the motel room, their fluffy pillows and clean sheets were calling your name. It'd been a long day of running around, dealing with a demon bitch you had no idea who she was and now you were trying to find a man who might be your only clue into figuring out why a box was so important it cost the lives of two men and turned one into a demon. While you attempted to focus your concentration once again, you worked for a few more minutes before you found your eyes wandering away from the laptop screen when you heard Henry whistling to himself to pass the time.

Sam, who had been sitting by your side flipping through John's journal, found himself broken away from his concentration at the noise. He found himself overcome with a sense of familiarity at the tune. He swore he heard it so many times over the years, for a moment it brought him back this childhood. "What is that? I know that tune."

"'As Time Goes By.'" Henry said from his position on the couch while you and the boys occupied the table just across the way. "I sure hope so. It's from Casablanca."

"It's still the same old love story. A fight for love and glory. A case of do-or-die. The world will always welcome lovers. As time goes by." You found yourself softly singing the familiar song, the words and music permanently engraved into the back of your brain. A smile tugged at the ends of your lips when you remembered the black and white film some people might have claimed to be the best movie ever made. You knew it was a classic, and you saw it too many times to count, but you cherished it for different reasons. "My mom always said it was my dad's favorite film. I watched it so many times as a kid I broke the VHS tape."

"Right." Sam said. He smiled himself at how a simple song from one of the greatest black and white movies held different memories for all of you. Dean was a bit unsure of what made it so important until his brother reminded him. "Dad used to whistle it from time to time."

“John saw ‘Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy’ at the drive-in one night. It scared the beeswax out of him. So I got him this little music box that played that song to help him sleep at night.” Henry told you an intimate story about John that made you realize he was a child once. An innocent mind who thought monsters in the shadows were there to snatch him out of his bed, but they would go away with a simple reassurance from his own father that the closet was empty and under the bed was safe. Henry smiled to himself as he shifted slightly in his seat so he was now leaning forward, his elbows on his thighs. "It worked like a charm."

You found yourself smiling at the thought of a small John Winchester being terrified of a mummy that probably wasn’t that scary to begin with from the lack of any real horror gore they tried to do back in the day. Sam chuckled to himself at how he was hearing his father being portrayed in a way that he never seen before. “Wow, it’s hard to believe Dad was ever scared of anything.”

"Hey, Nancy Drew." Dean's voice broke your concentration away from his grandfather and back to him, making the smile on your face slowly fade away. You gave him a slightly confused look as to why he was acting so weird. "You find anything yet?"

"Uh, yeah. According to county records, Tom Carey lives in Lebanon Kansas, and is a very happy one hundred and twenty-seven year old." You told them your findings that took little effort to find. You shut your laptop and let out a yawn you’ve been fighting off when the work you needed to do was finally done. "I don't know about you boys, but I am beat. I say we get some shut-eye, head over first thing in the morning."

“Wait, wait, wait. Listen to this.” Sam said. You let out a frustrated sigh when he forced you to sit back down in your seat so he could tell you what he found. “According to Dad’s journal, he once tortured a demon that said he made his bones working for Abbadon, who, it turns out, is a knight of hell.”

“What does that even mean?” Dean asked.

You knew there was different ranks of demons that signified how powerful and important they were to their creator during their creation. The older they were, the more stronger they were. But you’ve never heard of one being called a knight. Of course there was a lot of new things you were learning tonight, and Henry was providing you with some insight. "Knights of hell are hand-picked by Lucifer himself. They are of the first-fallen, first-born demons."

“So very pure, very strong.” Sam said. It explained why the knife didn’t work on her like the rest of her kind. Because she wasn't like the rest of the demons you faced against in your time. She was more powerful than you gave her credit for. Which meant taking her down was going to be more complicated than you thought.

"Legend has it that archangels killed all of them," Henry said, getting up from his spot up from the couch as he walked forward to the table. "which as we witnessed, is not the case."

"Unless she's the last of her kind." You mumbling, wondering if that was the case.

Henry nodded his head slowly, figuring that might be the case here, but his concentration found itself slipping away from the conversation and to the leather bound journal in Sam’s hands. The very one you looked through what felt to be hundreds of times. Much as you thought you could recite it line from line, you always found a new passage you didn’t remember reading. A piece of information that helped you and the boys out on a hunt. Henry gestured a hand to the journal and asked, “You say that belonged to your father?”

“Yeah.” Sam said. Henry asked if he could take a look at it, the younger Winchester slid it across the table for his grandfather to inspect it for himself and all his son accomplished over the years. “It’s a hunter’s journal. I assume Men of Letters—you use journals, too?”

“I intended to. I sent away for one the day before my initiation.” Henry said. He examined the picture of his son for a moment that was taken when he was in the Marines, drastically different from the small child he remembered saying good night to before ending up here. Lifting up the small photo, he noticed his own initials engraved into the leather. “As a matter of fact, judging by my initials here, this one, I believe.”

“That was yours?” Dean asked in a rather surprised tone of voice at hearing the origin of where his own father got the journal from.

“It must have arrived after…” Henry started to say something, but he found himself trailing off from his thought. He stared down at the journal for a moment that was intended to be his own. But over time it was shown that didn't turn out to be the case. “I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time, do I?”

"We don't know for sure." Sam admitted to the man in a quiet tone. "All we do know is that Dad never saw you again."

“What did he think happened to me?”

"He thought you ran out on him." Dean told the man. Family was always proven to be a tricky topic in your life, and it always seemed to be more complicated than it was intended to be.

Henry sat down on one of the empty chairs, feeling himself become overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions at what he was hearing. “John was a legacy. I was supposed to teach him the ways of the letters.”

"Well, he learned things a little differently." Dean mumbled. Henry furrowed his brow slightly as he asked his grandson how. It was the exact same way the Men of Letters looked down on. John found out about the supernatural in the most brutal way possible. "The hard way. Surviving a lonely childhood, a stinking war...only to get married and have his wife taken by a demon who went after his own friends. And later, he was killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn. But you know what? He kept going. He looked after Y/N like she was his own daughter. He never once turned his back on her. And in the end, he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad."

There was a lot of things you didn’t like about John, from how he raised his children to his utter obsession that drove him to his grave. But there was no denying he was a good man at heart who tried to do everything in his power to make sure his boys were safe. And he never once looked at you any differently because of what your mother did. He took you in and raised you like you were his own daughter, giving you responsibilities to occupy your mind and checking up on you to make sure you were okay. That man would die for you like he had for his own son. And while you bumped heads with him on things, at the end of it all, he loved you like family. He got close to trying to be the father you never had.

“I’m sorry.” Henry muttered out an apology. “I wish I had been there for him.”

“Yeah, it’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?” Dean asked his own grandfather, wondering if all the effort he put into with the Men of Letters was really worth it in the end. You let out a quiet sigh when he pushed himself up to his feet and started walking towards the front door.

“It’s the price we pay for upholding great responsibility.” Henry said. “We know that.”

"Your responsibility was to your family, not some glorified book club! What kind of crap did you manage to do beside cost the lives of two men and turn another's life into a living hell? If you weren't so worried about yourself and some damn box maybe all of this could have been a little different." Dean said. He was letting his emotions control what he was saying to his own flesh and blood, and while they were cruel, you knew there was truth to them. "My father might have been something you look down on. But he taught me to treat friends like family. Even if they turn your back on you for years. Eventually you learn what our parents do for us is to keep us safe."

"Andrew was a victim to his own circumstances. I wish to God things were different." Henry said. You found yourself biting your tongue, refraining yourself from lashing out at him yourself at his way of thinking. "We were legacies. We have no choice."

"Yeah. Keep telling yourself that." Dean muttered underneath his breath.

You pushed yourself up to your feet and called out the older man's name when you saw him grab his jacket and make his way towards the front door like you feared. He had a tendency of running off when things tensed up and going elsewhere to cool off. You didn't think he should have been alone from how worked up he was getting himself. You managed to find him right before he could get into the Impala and drive off. While he stood in the parking lot trying to find the right key to unlock the car, you stepped forward and lightly grabbed a hold of him by his arm.

"Dean, come on. Come back inside." You tried to speak to the man in a calm voice, thinking you might be able to help him get over whatever sort of resentment he had towards his grandfather. Because it wasn’t going to change much of anything. "I know you’re upset. And you have every right to be. Parents suck. They do stupid things and pretend like it's the right thing to do. Out of anyone in this world, you know that."

"He abandoned his own son, Y/N. For some stupid club that was more important than anything else." Dean said. His tone of voice was lined with anger at the previous argument with his own grandfather at how they didn’t see eye to eye on things. You let out a quiet sigh at how he was letting his emotions get the best of him. “And he has the audacity to look down at his own son for what he decided to do? At least he never turned his back on us when we needed him.”

"Are you kidding me? John never showed his face unless it had to do with Azazel. He didn't even give us a phone call to check to see if I was all right after I was dying in a hospital bed. Not to mention, half the time when he checked up on me was only by a phone call because he needed some help on a case. It was always you actually made the effort to visit me. Never him.” You said to him. All though he knew what you were saying was true, Dean still held a different opinion. "I understand he's your father. You want to pretend he's this great man who didn't leave you weeks at a time when you and Sam were kids. Who didn't keep secrets from us that we're still finding out to this very day."

"Kind of like how you and Sam have been acting lately?" Dean's question took you by a bit of surprise. You furrowed your brow slightly, wondering what he meant by that. "Ever since Sam decided to stick around, I can't help but feel you two are...leaving me out of something. I thought all of us were back together. Like a family."

"We are." You didn't realize you might have accidentally answered a little too quickly when you spoke up, making Dean's suspicion grow slightly more. You tried to brush off the situation by giving him a smile as you placed your hands on his arms and gave them a squeeze, reassuring him that everything was fine. "Sam and I are just catching up on old times. That's it. I mean, don't tell me you're getting a little jealous because I'm spending a little more time with Sam and not you?"

"Y/N, don't." Dean mumbled. He softly dragged your hands down his arms as he brushed off your touch, making your arms fall back down to your side. You gave him a look, wondering what his problem was now. "You've been acting off these past few weeks. And I wasn’t going to say anything just yet, because maybe I thought you would come to me if there was.”

"Of course." You said to him. "You know I would."

"Then why do I feel like you and him are keeping something from me?" Dean couldn't help himself but he accidentally lashed out at you, directing his anger that was meant for his grandfather onto you. Your expression began to twist into the same kind he'd seen before when he tried to raise his voice at you, even the slightest than normal, and it would come out. You were growing pissed. "I know what Sam gave up was a lot to ask. And you want to do everything to give us a life where we're both happy. And I want to give that you and Sam. I really. There's not one part of me that doesn't want to settle down.”

Your mood began to slightly change at the way Dean was approaching the subject. You knew he was talking about the conversation you and him had just a few short weeks after being reunited back together, where you learned about Emma, and your desire to have a real family of your own. And if you were right, it was the night where you conceived. You felt a little part of you start to wonder if this was the right time to tell him about the secret that was causing all of this trouble to begin with. However the feeling only lasted long as it arrived when Dean continued on talking.

"But..." You felt your heart drop into the pit of your stomach at the very word you should have known was coming. "It's not possible. Not right now, at least. You know that. We've got grandparents jumping out of motel room closets. Cas has been MIA. And we're not even close at figuring out how to close the gates of hell. It's just gonna have to wait. If that day ever does come for us."

"Wow. Aren't you such an optimist." You mumbled to him. Your lips stretched into a smile, not out of humor, but at how you thought all of this could have gone well. It wasn't. You felt yourself being pushed into a corner where you felt hopeless and alone. "And you wonder why I don't talk to you about these kind of things."

“I’m trying to be realistic here and not set you and Sam up for failure.” Dean said. “We don’t get happy endings, Y/N. We just do what we can and then we die. That’s it.” “What makes you think I want that? I don’t want a happy ending. I don’t want a ‘normal’ life. I use want some place to call home.” You suddenly found yourself snapping at him, telling him a sliver of truth that you had been keeping from him. “I just want someplace to settle down and not have to sleep in a motel or the backseat of the Impala. That’s all. Aren’t you getting tired of living on the road?” “I don’t know. I can’t miss something I never had.” Dean admitted to you. Your expression softened slightly at the hard truth he learned to accept. He didn’t want to your sympathetic stare. He wanted you to trust him. “Look, I just want you to know that you can come to me. Whatever you’ve been talking to Sam about. I‘m all ears. After all, I am your boyfriend.” “Yeah. And Sam’s my best friend. So?” You asked him, wondering what his relationship title had to do with anything. “I’m not hiding a friend you don’t know about. There’s no one else in my love life. There’s nothing you need to worry about. But there’s just some things Sam understands more logically than you. And there’s things I tell you that Sam doesn’t know.” “Like what?” Dean asked, wanting an example. You opened your mouth to think of one to keep this little white lie going without him suspecting a thing. Even though you knew it would be easier in the long run to just let it all out. You wouldn’t. Until you proved him wrong about being able to have both. To provide a proper living situation for him and his future child. “There’s just some secrets you don’t need to know about. End of story.” You said in a matter-of-fact voice.   "Right. Because you and Sam sharing secrets always ends up fine." Dean’s muttered remark was only meant for him to hear. It was out of frustration from the way you were carrying on this argument. And while you should have brushed it off, you felt your breathing become heavier in anger. Because you knew what he said hit below the belt in a way that made you want to haul off and smack him. But if you did, then you would need to explain yourself to him. And you were too pissed off to have this discussion. "You’re such a dick. You wonder why I don’t tell you things. It’s exactly because of this. You have an opinion on everything. And if nobody thinks the same way as you then they’re automatically wrong.” You said. Dean's expression changed at how angry you were getting now. It seemed that he hit a nerve in you. “I can see it comes from your father’s side of the family.”

You didn't give him a chance to keep the argument going or a chance to apologize for what he said just  a few moments ago. You left Dean standing in the parking lot as you stormed back to the motel room, roughly slamming the door shut to let everyone know you were pissed off. You forced yourself not to react on your emotions as you shrugged off your jacket and shoes, leaving them beside the front door. You walked past Henry, not caring if he heard every word. You didn't even look at Sam when you headed for the bed. You just wanted for this day to be over with.

+ + +

You fell right to sleep when you head hit the pillow, your anger and other sorts of emotions dragged to the surface from the argument you had with Dean was long forgotten from the exhaustion. You had been peacefully sleeping in the bed you claimed for a few hours before you were woken up by the feeling of someone's weight shifting the mattress. Inhaling a quiet breath, your eyes slowly opened to see a hazy figure that looked like someone you went to sleep pissed off at. Dean was standing over you, his flannel and jacket gone, shoes kicked off next to the bed. He was trying his hardest not to wake up, but it seemed his attempts failed. When you shifted around in bed and stared up at him, he found himself frozen in his spot.

“Henry took the couch and Sam’s passed out cold. Besides I think it'd be kind of hard trying to share a bed with that Sasquatch." Dean whispered. He waited a moment for you to throw a pillow at his face and tell him to take the floor. But he saw your lips stretch into a smile at the image. You moved over slightly in bed and gave him enough room for the both of you to share. He wasted no time getting into bed, the both of you getting comfortable. "I'm sorry for being a dick to you earlier." "I'm sorry for calling you one." You apologized back to him in a hushed voice so you wouldn't wake his brother. Dean reached out a hand and brushed a piece of hair out of your face. You wrapped your fingers around his wrist and gave him a small smile, hopeful he might be able to see it in the darkness. "You were right about me not telling you things. I didn't mean to over react like that." "It's okay. A lot's been going on lately. I understand where you're coming from." Dean said. You nodded your head as you opened your mouth to tell him something, but all that came out was a yawn. "Go to sleep, sweetheart. We can talk about it tomorrow." There was no part of you that was going to argue with that. The both of you exchanged a whispered good night before you finally let yourself close your eyes, drifting back off to sleep in the arms of the man you loved. Dean might have been a pain in the ass, but he was yours. And in time you were going to prove him wrong. While you and the boys drifted off to a deep sleep, Henry felt awake, too restless with his own thoughts to even think about catching a wink. He was given an opportunity to look into the future to see how his only son lived and died. While he hadn't followed in the right path that Henry wanted, there was some happy thought to see his son had tried to do good in this world. But it wasn't easy.

John learned the hard way about the supernatural when his wife and Andrew, who his son called a good friend of his, someone who was almost like a brother he knew his whole life, was taken by a demon he called "Yellow Eyes." The same demon reappeared again fourteen years later, this time it took another victim, Ella, leaving her only daughter an orphan. He hunted monsters and lived well below who he was supposed to be, raising his own children in the ways that Henry never intended.

The entire journal was well put together, with information about creatures that Henry was familiar with, but never hunted during his studies. The pages that were intended for his own personal notes and thoughts were filled with John's, a man who was supposed to be a legacy, but died at the hands of a demon who took the people he cared for. Henry looked up from the pages and to the double beds that his grandsons and the daughter of a man he called a friend of his own occupied.

Sam occupied one bed, his large frame spread across as he peacefully slept across from his brother. You and Dean, who had been fighting just a few hours prior, occupied a bed together, Dean lying behind you with his arms circled around your waist and tangled with your own, resting on your stomach. All three of you were destined for so much greater. Only your lives was filled with misery and pain. Henry shut the journal and sat with his own thoughts for a while. He didn’t need to think too much about what he could do to fix this situation. He owed his son that much.

+ + +

"Hey. Wake up!"

You had been peacefully sleeping, enjoying a dream that was one of the rare good ones that kept you lying in bed, hoping you might be able to drift off for a little while longer to catch some more of the blissful feeling. But you were torn away from any such luxury by the sound of Sam's voice, followed by something that felt dense and yet soft hit you against your shoulder. Your eyelids involentarly opened ever so slightly to let in the morning light as you looked up to see Sam's giant frame looming over you. You let out a loud yawn as Dean managed to let out a few grunted words, wondering what the rude wake up call was about.

“Henry—he’s gone.” Sam told you. You rolled your eyes in annoyance as you tried your hardest to untangle yourself out of Dean's arms as you forced yourself to sit up, asking him where his grandfather went. "I don't know. He just left a note saying he was gonna fix everything."

“Yeah, or screw it all up.” You grumbled. You pushed yourself up to your feet as you let out yet another yawn, knowing there was only one real way to get yourself to wake up and figure out what the hell Henry was doing. "I call dibs on the shower first. You guys figure out what the hell your stupid grandfather is about to do."

It didn't take long for you to get ready for yet another long day you knew you were going to have ahead for you while you tried to figure out what Henry's big plan was. Dean checked the Impala to see if Henry snuck off with anything while you and Sam kept tabs online to see if you might be able to pick up any possible leads. You might not have found a place where Henry wandered off to, but Dean had a sneaky suspicion of what his grandfather was up to.

“Now we know what he meant by ‘fix everything.’” Dean said. He stepped back into the motel room after taking a look around the Impala to see if anything was missing, and sure enough, Henry helped himself to something important. "He broke into the trunk, stole an angel feather. I'm guessing he's gonna whip up another one of those blood spells and Marty McFly himself back to the 1950s."

“To do what?” Sam asked. “Stop Abbadon before she strikes?”

“Or grab your father and haul ass.” You could only guess what he would do as a parent to stop his son from ending up in this lifestyle where it ended up like this. “Look, point is he’s doing it.”

"How? He still needs two ingredients for the spell. Unless...Unless there's a place nearby that sells read hoodoo." Sam guessed. You had a feeling there had to be close by in walking distance. Dean busied himself with calling Garth as Sam headed for his laptop to see if he might be able to track one down. However he found himself momentarily distracted by the police scanner you had going this morning, a call about a murder caught his attention. "Hey. It just hit the wires—one dead at Astro Comics."

“Abbadon?” You guessed, already having a feeling you knew the answer.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “It has to be.”

“Okay, so she’s close. I’ll find Henry. You and Nancy Drew find Larry.” Dean said, coming up with a plan of action. “Find out how to kill this chick.”

You were more than happy to agree to the plan, wanting to be be out of the way of a demon you knew was going to be hard to take down. You had a feeling she was eager to go after one thing, this box that cost the lives of two men, and the only way to do that was to go after Henry.

[Next Part]

Rewrite Taglist:

@deansquirreljerkwinchester @everything-i-tried-was-taken@starswirlblitz @albot-e @supernaturalismydrug @we-are-band-sexuals@angiewinchestercas@kaylinfayezink @owhatshername1 @kgbrenner  @cleo-is-my-doggy@eeyore1988 @dakota-dream @lilylovelyxo@timetravelingginger@holahellohialoha  @quicksilver123456@natashacamillaus @lexi-anastasia @kaylinfayezink @deanwnchstr @albot-eh@yelloweyedwriter@rashinyx2002 @shellybeans @icantfindacreativeurl@becs-bunker @oreosatmidnight @bands-and-shietz @fabulousmustachesonapolarbear @clarewinchester@releasethekracko@alex-zeppelin @mega-mrs-dean-winchester@theskytraveler @1000roughdrafts @notmoose94 @assassinofmasyaf@caswinchester2000 @savannah-m-99 @sunlight-dean @strayrosesbloom@that-slytherin-over-there

Message me if you would like to be added!

[thephantomofthe-internet]

Homeward Bound : Chapter 10

Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader, Billy Hargrove x Henderson!Reader

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13

Chapter Summary: It’s like the Breakfast Club! But lamer...

Word Count: 3,739

Warnings: Swearing, awkwardness, THE BABIES ARE HERE!!!

Author’s Note: Gotta keep up with Amanda, don’t I? 😉

Permanent Tag: @hotstuffhargrove @denimjacketkisses @hargrovesgoldilocks @lilmissperfectlyimperfect @hipsmcgee @thatchickvic

Series Tag: @baebee35 @moonstruckhargrove @kurt-nightcrawler @supernatural-pants @thoughstofaredhead @bby-becca @fear-the-reaper115 @estheflowergirl

You looked up with a grimace. Steve Harrington was standing over you in all his fluffy haired glory, being an absolute dick, as per usual.

“I highly disagree.” You snapped, pulling his arm off you “What the hell are you doing here anyway, what you got an APB out on me now?”

Steve’s demeanour deflated instantly, stepping back, hands finding their way into his front pockets, shoulders hunching slightly. “It’s the last day of school, somebody has to do the annual ‘threaten kids into not being assholes’ speech.” He explained.

“They still do that?” you asked, letting your guard down just for a second.

“Unfortunately, and apparently it’s a rite of passage to do the speech. Which means this year I got spit balls shot at me and paper balls lobed at my head by snot nose kids.” He replied.

“Oh the irony, you used to do that all through high school, especially when it was Callahan doing the talking.” Nancy said, knocking her shoulder into his. Steve smiled, pulling her into a tight hug.

“Hey, Steve.” She said softly into his shoulder. They both looked highly emotional, a strange sight for you. You remembered when she couldn’t stand being in a room with him and he was still just trying to prove that he wasn’t still in love with her, to no avail. And while that went away with time, they never seemed exactly close.

“I didn’t know you were coming in today, I thought it was tomorrow.” He replied, pushing her back slightly by the shoulders, looking her over “How’s Sybs?”

“Good, thank you again for the gift for her, you’re two months early, but she looks adorable in the bunny suit and it’s the only thing she’ll stay asleep in now.” Nancy replied with a smile.

“Good, I’m glad.” He replied. “Your mother must love the attention and the full house again, how’s she getting along with Jonathan? Or did he end up staying back?”

“Jonathan is visiting with his mom; he’ll come down with them later in the week.” She replied easily.

“They still hate each other?” you asked, popping a stick of white chewing gum into your mouth, grinning cheekily at her.

Steve rolled his eyes “You’re just gonna ask that like it isn’t rude, huh? He asked disappointedly “’Cause you know, it doesn’t really matter anymore. They’re married and Karen’s just gonna to deal. Besides, they can’t be that petty as to-”

“They absolutely hate each other. Jonathan wouldn’t come down with me to stay with her; he’s still trying to find a way to not have to stay with her when he gets here.” Nancy replied breezily with a shrug.

“Ha! I knew it!” you cried, grinning like a fool.

“You always gotta be right, Y/N?” Steve asked. You turned to look at him, ready to retort with sass and anger. But he wasn’t cocky or annoyed, he was trying to hold back a grin; his eyes shining with mirth. Nothing about him was confrontational and the need to fight back drained from your body.

“When you’re around, Harrington, I’m always right.” You replied, a small smirk slipping onto your lips. And looking at you, relaxed and bright and joking again, Steve felt his whole body warm and glow. He didn’t release how cold and uncomfortable he was until you smiled; your body language could change his whole disposition and your smile could light up a whole room.

“So wait what are we doing here? Just wandering? ‘Cause I have no one here I need to see, except Mike but I’m not gonna pull him out of class, you know?” Nancy asked.

“Well, I’m hiding from Hargrove. I can’t get caught by him without Dustin or else I’ll get dragged into his truck.” You replied.

“He’s following you around?” Steve asked, tone hostile and worrisome, his whole body lifting to appear more physically opposing.

“No more than you are.” You replied, watching him deflate like a popped balloon. “He just saw me outside the school and decided that he had the time to try to get me in his truck. Probably not something he should be doing while on the clock.”

“He’s definitely got the time, since he’s on probation.” he replied. You cocked your brow, utterly lost, expecting clarification. “Powell caught him driving around drunk a couple months ago, Mr. Sherman put him on probation since it was in the truck. Powell never booked him on it because, according to him, the lost wages should be more than enough punishment. He’s got another week of forced time off before he’s back in.” Steve explained.

Nancy furrowed her brow “Why not just fire him then?” she asked.

“We’re short on mechanics. Usually we get a couple kids from the trade school Milton, but they opened a new shop in Carmel and so we didn’t get many kids up here. Mr. Sherman’s short a man and without Billy, he’ll be down to just him and George Burns.” Steve replied.

You hummed “Billy didn’t mention that…” you said, not really to them but more to yourself.

Billy was never the most honest guy on the block, but he owned up to his fuck ups fairly quickly, usually without being pressed or even asked. He owned up to still not getting along with Max and Susan, his dislike still very apparent. He owned up to not going home in part because he was scared. Hell, he owned up to supposedly still being in love with you! But this, this almost expected thing was hidden from you. You wondered what else he was hiding.

“I don’t know, I mean its Hargrove, he’s not much of a talker.” Nancy said reasonably, smiling sympathetically at you.

“Besides, he probably didn’t want to be doing much talker. Or have the time, I should say.” Steve said, his tone forcefully light and more than a little bitter.

Nancy gasped “You told him?!?” she cried, earning an awkward chuckle from Steve and an eye roll from you.

“He picked me up this morning. I had to tell someone or else I would explode from shame, embarrassment, and the giddiness of a secret.” You replied.

“He picked you up?” Nancy asked “And you didn’t tell me?”

“What exactly is there to tell, Nance? He picked me up, we had breakfast, and then he drove me home. Not exactly rocket science.” You replied, watching her carefully.

“Right, right of course…” she said, nodding quickly, her mind obviously running through a million scenarios. “So…how’d it go? You have fun?” she asked, a little twitchy and excited, far too excited for the subject at hand.

“It was fine. Like I said nothing major, right Steve?” you said, making Nancy jump. She’d forgotten he was there. Steve muffled a laugh, watching her curiously.

“Yeah,” he said, a tiny giggle popping out at the end of the word, forcing him to swallow his giggles, finding a stern face. “Yeah, fine. Are you alright, Nance, you’re really jumpy.”

“Fucking hormones man…I have the memory and foresight of a fucking goldfish…” she  muttered, shaking her head wearily.

You giggled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders “Ah, Mrs. Nancy Byers-Wheeler, you are too fun to bug. Truly, you should be pregnant all the time, it makes it more fun for me. I get to be the smart one.” You said.

“I am still the smarter of the two of us, even with a baby stealing my brain cells.” Nancy frowned, annoyance evident in the heavy line creasing the centre of her forehead.

“I know, my dearest darling, I know.” You replied, making her smile again and sharing it with her.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Steve called at a flock of teenagers in the hall a few feet away. You almost didn’t recognize them.

Max, Lucas, Mike, Dustin, and a girl you could only label as Marcy were all ahead of you, loitering around as the girl you’d labelled Marcy scratched something into the wall.

Mike, significantly taller but somehow not the tallest of the group, turned to find the sound and, without registering the whole of your little band, turned back to his friends and yelled “Scatter!”

You stepped forward, holding Steve back as you replied “Chill, Wheeler, nobody’s gonna tell on you.” Max turned back to look at you, roll her eyes as she grabbed Mike by the back of the shirt collar.

“Chill, dipshit, it’s just Steve and…is that you, Henderson? Jesus you turned into a hippie.” She said, earning a collective sigh from the group.

I haven’t had time to cut it, been busy.” You replied, walking over to the group to muffle her red hair, chopped almost completely off into a red pixie cut, mirroring Mia Farrow from Rosemary’s Baby. “Ugh, don’t mess with it, it took morning to get it to look this good.” She moaned, pushing your hand

“And it still looks like shit.” Lucas joked. Overall, he’d changed the most. While Mike had gotten taller, he still looked a little like an elf and was still too pale, and Max was still freckled and tiny, boyish save for her well done makeup, clearly a way to remind the world that she was still in fact a girl. Lucas was the most mature looking-the tallest of the group and the strongest. Dustin had said he’d taken up the helm of being the group’s sports star, captaining the basketball team in Steve’s place. His hair was still cropped short and his smile was still kind, but awkward. Underneath it all, he still seemed to be the little, awkward, logical boy you’d left in Hawkins with bad clothes and a worse relationship with his little sister, now a eighth grader.

“That’s not what you said earlier.” Max replied, eyeing him up. You cringed at their little routine, still virgining in their attempts at adulthood.

Mike was looking at you all, gobsmacked to see everyone all at once. “Nancy?” he asked, finding his sister in the group. “Jesus Christ what’re you doing here? Mom’s gonna kill you and the baby.”

“Language, Mike! Sybil is picking up on words now!” she cried.

“She’s not here now, is she?” he shot back and the two fell into a stream of bickering.

“Yeah well…it looked better then…” Lucas tried, awkward and strained.

“Y/N! What’re you doing here?” Dustin asked, pushing his way to the front of the group, clearly embarrassed.

“We were bored, decided to loiter inside the school instead of outside.” You replied with a shrug.

“And you are?” a female voice asked, high and tight. The supposed Marcy had stepped forward, hands on her hips and chest stuck out. If you were her age, this would turn into a girl fight, forcing strained seduction and quick backhanded acts of kindness.

“Hey, I’m Y/N,” you said, sticking out a hand for her to shake, which she looked at with a scowl. “I’m Dustin’s older sister.” You added. Quickly, her demeanour changed; she deflated, looking away with a sort of embarrassed inward cringe, shaking her head.

She huffed out a sigh, taking your hand and shaking it weakly “Hi…I’m Marcy, Dustin’s friend.” She said.

“I thought as much, I’ve heard a lot about you.” You replied with an easy smile, trying to urge her on. She looked uncomfortable, feigning toughness in dark clothes and a scowl painted dark purple, emphasizing the thickness of her lips. It all looked like what your mother would call an attempt to muffle your beauty, a form of dazzle camouflage that was meant to distract and scare away, not invite in. You understood her, you were her when you were her age.

“Really?” she asked, a small smile pulling at the corners of her pursed mouth, trying in vain not to smile.

“Yeah, you pop up in more letters than anyone else, well maybe anyone except Steve over here, he takes first place.” You replied, watching both Steve and Dustin cower away, watching you horrified and nervous.

“Y/N, that’s enough.” Dustin said, eyes flicking between you and Marcy, too nervous to look at either of you fully. You tried to sympathize; you didn’t want to be like your mother and embarrass him, but if it’s that easy to embarrass him then you didn’t know how to really communicate with this poor girl.

“That’s cool.” Marcy announced, the evidence of a smile on her eyes and cheeks, her mouth still holding firm despite the lilt in her voice.

“So, what does he say about me?” Steve asked nervously, shifting his weight between feet. Dustin looked at him curiously and a silent look was exchanged; Dustin confused and Steve trying to seem calm as his mind raced with possibilities.

“I mean…nothing major, he mostly just mentions you every time he talks about friends or hanging out.” You replied with a shrug, not registering his tense body language he was displaying.

“Really? Nothing else?” he asked, eyes darting around the hall.

“Not really, I mean, I didn’t even know you were a cop, remember? He’s not great with details.” You replied, watching him curiously. Steve seemed to be calming down, though his nerves were still ragged and raw and now very obvious to you. “You know, if this questioning is going to continue, I’m going to need a lawyer.” You said with a smile, nudging his shoulder. He smiled, though the twitchy energy wasn’t fading.

“Guys,” Marcy called, having gone back to examine her work, her scratchy letters spelling out ‘fuck school’ surely to be cover by paint or simply more scratches before the beginning of the school year. “I gotta get going, Andy’s gonna be here soon, I’ll catch you around, yeah?”

“Yeah, you still looking for a job in town?” Dustin asked, picking up her bag off the floor.

“Got an interview at Darlene’s Dress Shop at the mall, if all goes to plan I won’t be looking by Monday!” She replied, running down the hall without another word. Max rolled her eyes, sending her a half hearted wave.

“Bye Marce…” She muttered, a scowl making lines around her mouth. Lucas rubbed her shoulder gently, shaking his head.

“She’s not worth it, M&M…” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Guys! She had our hall passes! We gotta go!” Mike cried, trying to run off again, only to be grabbed by Nancy, forcing him back.

“It’s the last day of school, exams start Wednesday. Relax, you won’t get detention.” Nancy said softly. Mike nodded, his breathing shaky. Mike seemed to have gotten the worst of the anxiety, or at least the most obvious. Dustin had mentioned he’d turned into a bit of a square but you didn’t see it. He just seemed stressed out, a nervous twinge to his movement, a dart in his eyes. Hawkins obviously wasn’t helping him.

“And besides, if they even tried we’d come and break you out. They can’t hold you here, you’re graduating in a week!” Dustin added, wrapping a careful arm around the lanky boy’s shoulders, squeezing him too tight.

“That’s not encouraging, dude.” Mike replied, his face scrunching from the uncomfortable squeeze, pushing away.

“Well, how about then we get out of here? Can’t get detention if you aren’t in the building.” You offered.

“Yes, you can. We tried that, they just call home.” Mike retorted, crossing his skinny arms over his chest.

“Anybody else?” You asked, turning your attention to the others, already grabbing their bags off the floor. They nodded, heading down the hall. You motioned for Steve and Nancy to follow them, leaving Mike behind.

“Aw Jesus Christ wait up you assholes!” Mike cried, running to catch up with the rest of you. As it turns out, peer pressure and a bit of motherly coaxing still worked on him. You restrained yourself from laughing at him, his shaggy hair bouncing with every bound.

“Where are we even going?” He whined, eyes darting around for some mythical hall monitor or camera waiting to catch him.

“Well, I only have one request for you all, and then you can go wherever you want.” You replied with a shrug.

“We’re going to Scoops after this, its tradition, dumbass.” Max added, brushing her bangs off her face and holding out her palm to you, silently asking for gum. You complied easily, digging around in your purse for the pack and a pen as you found your way back into the front hall and in front of that mural.

You pulled the visitor pass from your pocket and handed it to Steve, motioning for Nancy to do the same. “Go and return these for us and keep Rhonda busy for a minute, okay?” you asked.

“What, why?” he countered, taking the polyester lanyards.

“Because I’m about to get the kids to commit a minor criminal offence and you’re a cop. So go away. You heard nothing.” You replied, pushing him towards the office door. Steve complied, heading into the office like a child forced to say hello to their kissy aunt.

“Alright,” you announced with a clap of your hands “Before you leave this place forever, I think it’s important to leave behind a legacy. Yearbooks get forgotten, photos get switched out, but with a single act of defiance we can leave a message that might last a bit longer.” You pulled the small card from the mess of school spirit themed messages.

“This has been up since I graduated, they never change this board and so you’re message will last as long as the board does.” You explained, showing them the card, the back of which gave the old guidance counsellor’s information for parent use, handed to you with a worried expression that same day.

You wrote the message out of defiance and anger.

Mrs. Donaldson had declared that you should return to high school for a year, do the victory lap to make you truly ready for college life. The idea that you weren’t ready made your blood boil; you were ready as you could ever be. She didn’t understand-after what you’d seen you could handle anything.

“I just think, after the year you’ve had, you deserve a redo.” She said, folding her hands neatly in the centre of the desk, her giant square rimmed glasses slipping down her nose.

“Do I have the marks for college?” you asked boredly, eyeing the teen psychology posters lining the walls with a grimace.

“Well yes, but after Heather’s-” she began, watching anxiously as your bored expression switched into an angry one. She silently braced herself for the explosion.

“What the hell does Heather have to do with me going to college?” you snapped.

“I just think that after Heather’s death you-” Mrs. Donaldson tried, but the cause was lost and you were already on your feet, throwing your half-empty bag on your shoulder, forcing the chair back up to the desk.

“I think Heather’s death has nothing to do with my success and that you trying to use it to keep me here is bullshit. I know who you’re working for and I know that all of this is some sort of scheme to get me. I’m going to college and that’s final.” You snapped.

Mrs, Donaldson sighed, pulling off her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose “Just take the card, Y/N.” she said, sliding the neatly printing card across the desk. And, for some reason, you took it.

You had planned to just throw it out and move on with your life. But as you sat on one of the cool metal benches outside the office, an idea slowly revealed itself.

You only had one pen on you, the purple gel pen that always left huge ink blots on everything, but you had to try. The message was clear in your head and came out easily, the pen never splotching. In that brief moment, you believed in fate and magic. It was probably just chance, but you were in the position to believe in such things because the world around you had changed so much that believing in something like fate or luck made as much sense as everything else happening around you.

You let your eyes flick to the head secretary, who was thankfully preoccupied with a magazine and carton of chocolates. You stood from the bench, trying to move as casually as you could over to the bulletin board, pretending to examine its worn news clippings and Polaroid’s. You chose the largest spot of white, up in the right hand corner and, snatching out a snapshot of Heather herself, replaced the photo with note.

‘Don’t let them make you forget things for their benefit. Remember pain. Remember embarrassment. Remember Heather Macpherson.’

“I think it’s only fitting that the third generation of fucked up kids leave theirs behind. Now, this has to be done carefully as to not draw attention to it, you can’t just write in on the bottom of a photo, okay? Do it together, write in on something, and leave your mark.” You told them. You made it feel like another mission, but the way they smiled and looked to one another. They huddled together and whispered wildly, just like they did as children. It would’ve been sweet if the context of all those huddles weren’t tattooed to your mind.

Mike had ripped off a piece of manila envelope and handed it to Lucas, who you assumed had the best handwriting. Dustin seemed to be the only one with a pen and Max was used as a makeshift desk. The note, when finished, was pinned up with a collection of very old yellowed photos. You herded them off and nodded to Steve, who headed out of the office, leaving Rhonda with her whole face lit up.

You remained at the board, wondering how long their note would last. Steve came up behind you, though this time it didn’t startle you this time.

“What they write?” he asked, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. You pointed out the tiny note.

The Russian girl lives.

“I mean, not entirely incorrect…” Steve said, a trying smile on his face, looking for something positive to say.

“It’s stupid.” You said, laughing just a little. Steve looked at you, taking in your easy smile and relaxed posture.

“Yeah…yeah it is. Come on, before they realize you’re laughing at them.” He replied, grabbing your hand and pulling you out the door, giggling like school children.

[brotherfaithsisterdoubt]

Extended Scene – Ch. 19, Gay and Christian

This is bonus content for the Supernatural fanfic Polish Prayers by DestielHisEyesOpened

Word count: 1,319

Notes:

The theologian mentioned in this scene is Rev. Dr. James H. Cone

More on queer theology and gay Christians: • UnClobber YouTube playlist • Romans 1:26-27: A Clobber Passage That Should Lose Its Wallop • Clobbering "Biblical" Gay Bashing • Two odd little words: the LGBT issue

Content Warnings: • Brief but explicit reference to sex • Brief mention of suicide and other consequences of homophobia • Brief references, in a historical context, to sexual abuse of children and enslaved people

Dean took a sip of his iced tea. “So, uh, I was wondering,” he said. He wasn't sure this was the best idea, but the question had been nagging at his mind all week. “How is it that you can be gay and Christian? Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with it!” he rushed to add. “I'm just curious, cause, you know. So many religious folks do.”

Boy did they, Dean added silently. He'd never forget that one hookup who, after spending half the night balls-deep in Dean's ass, left a tract about the evils of homosexuality on the motel nightstand.

Alfie put the half-carved bench down on his lap. “Well for me, there's really one Bible verse that settles it. Matthew 7:16, from the Sermon on the Mount. 'You will know them by their fruits.' A good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit, I'm sure you're heard the passage. It's from the Sermon on the Mount.”

Dean hesitated, then nodded slowly. That rang a vague bell? Maybe?

“Well, what are the fruits of homophobia? Self-loathing, broken families, kids thrown out onto the street, violence, suicide, murder… And the fruits of accepting queer people as we are? Loving relationships, healthy self-esteem, intact families… So yeah, by Jesus’s own words, it’s pretty clear which one is good and which one is bad!”

“I guess,” said Dean. “But aren't there other verses that, uh, aren't so friendly?”

Alfie nodded. “Yeah, the 'clobber passages.'” he sighed. “Thing is, you can't just take a verse out of context and say, 'this is what the Bible says.' You've got –” he clenched his fist “– to consider the larger context of the chapter, the book, and the Bible as a whole. And a major theme that runs through the entire Bible is liberation for the oppressed. Hell, one of the theologians I read in seminary outright said that if a theologian doesn't emphasize that point, they're not even doing Christian theology anymore! So using the Bible to oppress, instead of to liberate, is automatically an abuse of the text.”

Dean saw some motion out of the corner of his eye, and heard some rustling. He looked down into the garden and saw Cas crouched there, pulling up weeds. He stiffened a little – he wouldn't have brought this subject up if he'd known they'd have an audience. Well, fingers crossed that Cas was too far away to actually hear anything.

“Plus,” Alfie continued, “nearly all of us read translations, not the original texts. So words like 'homosexuality,' which was coined in the late 19th century? Never appears in the Bible. Not once. Our present-day concept of 'sexual orientation' didn't even exist back then.Their whole understanding of sexuality was super different from ours. So how could the writers condemn something they had no concept of? It's like asking if they condemned, I dunno, the internet!”

“So what exactly were they condemning, then?” asked Dean.

“Well if you look at their cultural context,” Alfie answered, “they're responding to stuff like pagan sex rituals, wild orgies, sex slaves, men having sex with boys… There isn't a single reference, negative or positive, to loving, respectful, consensual same-sex relationships between equals.

“Hell, back in first century Rome, they didn't even think of straight relationships in those terms. You know what Paul thought of straight sex?”

“Uh, only in marriage?” Dean guessed.

“Well yeah, but also, he wished everyone was celibate like him. Marriage was a second-best option for the weak. And even then, the point wasn't to have an acceptable outlet for sexual passion – it was to guard against it. That goes back to the idea in Stoic philosophy that all passions are bad and should be overcome,” said Alfie.”

“Wait, so if people weren't supposed to have sex, where did they expect babies to come from?”

“Oh, people could have sex,” answered Alfie. “They were just supposed to do it dispassionately. Passion destabilized society, and brought on destruction. The ideal man had perfect control over himself, his family, his household. So sex? Yes. But love? Desire? Nope.”

Dean blinked at Alfie. “That's… not how sex works,” he said.

Alfie smiled. “Now you're starting to see how different their understanding of sexuality was from ours.”

“Yeah, no kidding!” replied Dean. “That's just… not natural!”

“Not according to the Stoics,” said Alfie. “And it's pretty ironic, cause people say being gay is 'unnatural,' but you know what was considered completely natural and unremarkable in Paul's day?”

Dean shook his head.

“A man sleeping with his slaves. Male or female, with or without their assent. He was higher on the social ladder, slaves were lower, so he could fuck 'em. That's why they could molest boys, too. But two freeborn men? That was 'unnatural' because they were the same rank, and disgraceful because it treated one of them like a slave. Or, you know, a woman. Cause they weren't big on gender equality back then, either.”

“So if we don't think marriage is for chumps anymore, or women are inferior to men, or slavery should even be a thing, then it doesn't make sense to pretend the man-on-man stuff is still relevant, either,” said Dean.

“Exactly!” said Alfie. “And there's more. I'm not gonna bore you with a take-down of all six clobber passages, but just one example – the passage in Romans, chapter one? Yeah, that's completely out of context. Some scholars looked closely at the grammatical structure of chapters one and two, and concluded that chapter one's rant against sinful gentiles isn't Paul's own thoughts. He was actually quoting the kind of stuff that his audience would have heard before, and probably agreed with, just so he could turn around and say, 'Hey, cut the crap! This angry finger-pointing isn't good, Christian behavior!'”

“Wait,” said Dean, “so you're saying people are getting that passage exactly backwards?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” said Alfie.

“Sounds like you've put a lot of research into this,” Dean said.

Alfie shrugged. “I guess. Some, I learned in seminary. And the clobber passages are a big hurdle for a lot of folks, so it's good to have a grasp on them. For me personally though, they've never been that big a deal. Cause Jesus made me about a thousand times more gay. How could that happen, if he had a problem with it?”

“Wait, what? You're gonna have to run that by me one more time,” said Dean.

Alfie chuckled. “Before, I was pretty gay. I was out, I was proud, all that. But then Jesus happened, and I went from 'pretty gay' to ' rainbows literally shooting out my ass.'”

Dean nearly choked on his chocolate pudding

Alfie, chuckled at Dean's reaction, then clarified what he meant. “He made me understand other marginalized people's humanity better, which helped me understand my own better, too. I had no clue how much internalized homophobia I was carrying around until that burden was lifted.”

Dean was a little confused. “Didn't you say you grew up Christian, though?”

“Yeah, but honestly, I thought it was full of shit,” said Alfie. “I left the church for fifteen years before learning how Christianity could actually make sense. But that's a whole 'nother conversation. Point is, loving someone when society says it's wrong, that takes a lot of heart. And I just can't imagine that God would call it a flaw to have too much heart. Hell, I'll go even further. If love is from God – and it is – then homophobia is blasphemy.”

Dean gave a low whistle. Strong words. “Maybe you should give the Pope a crash course on this stuff when he comes,” Dean joked.

Alfie gave him the side-eye. “Yeah, cause that would go over so well, I'm sure!”

[love-god-forever]

The Great White Throne Judgement in the Bible Is Fulfilled This Way

By Nick Yang, United States

“And I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened” (Revelation 20:11-12).

Every time I read these two verses, I would imagine the splendid scene of the returned Lord judging mankind in the last days. I thought that at that time the Lord Jesus would sit upon the great white throne in the sky with the records of every person in His hands, and imposingly judge them all. I continued to stick to this notion until I heard God’s good news.

I heard God’s good news.

One day in February 2018, after I returned home from a holiday in another state, my wife happily said to me, “The Lord Jesus has already returned in the flesh. He has expressed words and done the work of judgment starting from God’s house. I went to listen to a few sermons about this. From them, I’ve understood many truths and really gained sustenance. Moreover, those brothers and sisters have a fresh and clear way of fellowshiping about the Bible. Also, they are very compassionate. So I felt unrestrained when gathering together with them. How about listening to them with me tomorrow?” Hearing this, I said in amazement, “How is this possible? Revelation clearly states that when the Lord returns, He will sit upon the great white throne in the sky and personally unroll the scrolls where everything that every single person did throughout his or her life has been recorded. At that time, people will be lifted in the air, personally confess to their sins committed throughout their lifetime, and accept the Lord’s righteous judgment. But so far we haven’t seen any scenes like this, so how can it be that the Lord has returned?” And I reminded her, “There is no true love in this world. You should be careful. Don’t be cheated by others.”

She said, “Indeed there is no love in this world. But they are true believers in God, and are really different from ordinary people. You’ll see when you meet them tomorrow.” Hearing her speaking like this, I felt a bit curious, so I wanted to meet those people praised by my wife and listen to their sermons.

My notions and imaginings were barriers to my knowledge of God.

The following day, when we arrived at the meeting place as arranged, the brothers and sisters greeted us with enthusiasm. By closely observing their speech and actions, I could feel their hearts were genuine. Slowly, my own heart felt a lot more liberated. Furthermore, hearing them communicate their own experiences of believing in God, I felt their fellowshiping was very practical and novel. Accordingly, I thought their way was worth seeking and investigating. So, I asked the brother who preached, “Brother, I heard my wife say that the Lord Jesus had already returned to flesh to do His work of judgment. But I remember Revelation states, ‘And I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened’ (Revelation 20:11-12). Therefore, it’s reasonable to say that judgment in the last days ought to be in the sky. When the Lord returns, it should be that He’ll sit upon the great white throne in the air, with books of records in His hands, and imposingly judge each man and woman based on his or her individual actions. How can you say that the Lord has already become flesh to carry out upon earth the work of judgment?”

After hearing my question, he nodded and said solemnly, “Based on the record of John’s visions in the Book of Revelation, many Christians are full of notions and imaginings about judgment during the time of the Lord coming again in the last days. They believe that the work of judgment will be carried out in the air. In their thoughts, there will be a white throne in the sky, and on that throne will be the Lord Jesus. With the book of life and the book of the dead opened beside Him, the Lord Jesus will ask all people to account for all of the sins they have ever committed, and then He’ll decide people’s end based on their actions and deeds. We all imagine the work of God’s judgment to be very supernatural. However, will God fulfill it in accordance with our imaginings? Will God’s judgment in the last days happen in the air or on earth? Let’s first look at two verses. Revelation 14:6-7 say, ‘And I saw another angel fly in the middle of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.’ These verses clearly tell us that an angel told people that when the time God performs judgment comes, people aren’t in the sky but on earth. Let’s think about this. Heaven is where God resides; we are mortal beings who have always lived on earth and are also the mankind corrupted by Satan. So how can we possibly ascend to heaven to be judged? We’re only worthy of bowing down at God’s feet and accepting God’s judgment on earth. That is more practical.”

Taking a good look at the verses and pondering the brother’s fellowshiping, I felt it made a lot of sense. I had always believed that when the Lord returned, He would judge us in the sky. But I never thought about whether it was realistic or not. I thought, “It seems that my faith in God is confused.”

Not much later, he turned on his computer and asked me to read a passage of God’s words, “The ‘judgment’ in the words previously spoken—judgment will begin at the house of God—refers to the judgment God passes today on those who come before His throne in the last days. Perhaps there are those who believe in such supernatural imaginings as that, when the last days have arrived, God will erect a big table in the heavens, upon which a white tablecloth will be spread, and then, sitting upon a great throne with all men kneeling on the ground, He will reveal the sins of each man and thereby determine whether they are to ascend to heaven or be sent down to the lake of fire and brimstone. No matter what the imaginings of man, the substance of God’s work cannot be altered. The imaginings of man are nothing but the constructs of man’s thoughts and come from the brain of man, summed up and pieced together from what man has seen and heard. Therefore I say, however brilliant the images conceived, they are still no more than a drawing and are not able to substitute for the plan of God’s work. After all, man has been corrupted by Satan, so how can he then fathom the thoughts of God? … Everyone imagines God’s work of judgment to be preternaturally wonderful. Do you know, however, that God began the work of judgment among men long ago and all this while you have been nestled in peaceful oblivion? That, the time that you think God’s work of judgment is officially beginning, it is already time for God to make heaven and earth anew? At that time, perhaps you will have only just understood the meaning of life, but the merciless work of punishment of God shall bring you, still deep in sleep, into hell. Only then will you suddenly realize that God’s work of judgment has already concluded.”

After I finished reading, he fellowshiped this, “God’s words reveal that our ideas about the Lord coming to do His work of judgment in the sky completely come from our conceptions and imaginings. In fact, even though we haven’t seen any signs and wonders, God has already expressed truths and started His work of judgment beginning with His house among the group of people predestined and selected by Him. This is exactly the judgment of the great white throne, as prophesied in the Book of Revelation. All those who accept God’s work of judgment in the last days, and gain purification and transformation, are the overcomers made by God before the great catastrophe. Their names will be recorded in the book of life. This is completely in accordance with the prophecy recorded in Revelation, ‘These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God’ (Revelation 14:4-5). When the people who accept God’s work of judgment in the last days are made complete by God, God’s judgment work will be thoroughly complete, and then God will reward good and punish evil. If we accept God’s judgment work at that time, it’ll be too late. So, only by accepting the incarnate God’s work of judgment by the word can we survive the catastrophe with the protection of God.”

It turned out that God is judging mankind like this.

His fellowshiping made me feel suddenly enlightened. I thought, “As it turns out, the work of judgment beginning with the house of God is the judgment of the great white throne, as prophesied in the Book of Revelation. God’s work really is wise and unfathomable! I must listen carefully to figure out whether the Lord has truly returned to start His work of judgment beginning with His house.” Then I asked him out of curiosity, “Brother, has the Lord really come to earth? Then how does He judge mankind?”

He smiled and gently said, “In the past, we all believed that when God judges people, He’ll sit on the seat of judgment and directly decide their end, based on their deeds. Then the good people will be accepted into heaven, while the wicked will be sent to hell and punished. Actually, this is all just our notions and imaginings. Then how does God judge people on earth? Let’s take a look at God’s words and see what He has to say about this topic.” He opened his Kindle and read, “In the last days, Christ uses a variety of truths to teach man, expose the essence of man, and dissect his words and deeds. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s duty, how man should obey God, how man should be loyal to God, how man ought to live out the normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and the disposition of God, and so on. These words are all directed at the essence of man and his corrupt disposition. In particular, those words that expose how man spurns God are spoken in regard to how man is an embodiment of Satan and an enemy force against God. In undertaking His work of judgment, God does not simply make clear the nature of man with just a few words; He exposes, deals with, and prunes it over the long term. These methods of exposure, dealing, and pruning cannot be substituted with ordinary words, but with the truth that man does not possess at all. Only methods of this kind are deemed judgment; only through judgment of this kind can man be subdued and thoroughly convinced into submission to God, and moreover gain true knowledge of God. What the work of judgment brings about is man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his own rebelliousness. The work of judgment allows man to gain much understanding of the will of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It also allows man to recognize and know his corrupt substance and the roots of his corruption, as well as to discover the ugliness of man. These effects are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the substance of this work is actually the work of opening up the truth, the way, and the life of God to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the work of judgment done by God.”

After reading God’s words, he continued to fellowship this, “From these words we learn that in the last days, God expresses truths according to the need of mankind, and that these truths are aimed at our corrupt thoughts and nature. He uses truths to judge and chastise our disobedience and unrighteousness so that we can accept the judgment in His words and achieve an understanding of the truth. We will know how evil, absurd and preposterous the wrong ideas Satan instilled in us are, recognize our satanic nature that resists and betrays God, and see how filthy and ugly our souls are. This allows us to develop repentance, and no longer rely on our satanic nature when we do things. Rather, we can be good people in accordance with the word of God, and, in the end, change will occur in our life disposition. In this way we’ll be totally made complete by God, and His judgment work will be finished. Take me, for example. In the past, I believed that to believe in God was just to receive blessings and grace, and to enjoy God’s eternal blessings. Directed by such faith, I constantly demanded grace and blessings from the Lord, using my sacrificing and traveling for Him as capital, and felt that I was the most qualified to get these things. But I saw the words of Almighty God, ‘Man’s relationship with God is merely one of naked self-interest. It is the relationship between the receiver and giver of blessings. To put it plainly, it is like the relationship between employee and employer. The employee works only to receive the rewards bestowed by the employer. In a relationship like this, there is no affection, only a deal; there is no loving and being loved, only charity and mercy; there is no understanding, only resignation and deception; there is no intimacy, only a gulf that cannot be bridged.’ The disclosure of God’s words made me ashamed of myself. I saw that my nature was so selfish, deplorable, and treacherous. My belief in God and sacrifices for God weren’t to pursue the truth nor fulfill the duties of a created being. On the contrary, I was trying to engage in a transaction with God. I did so in order to satisfy my desire for gaining blessings, and to demand eternal blessings from God. With this knowledge, I felt especially regretful, and began to forsake my personal ambitions and desires and pursue the truth according to God’s requirements. Afterward, God arranged many situations in which He tried and refined me to reveal my shortcomings so that I could see even more clearly the truth of my corruption. I loathed myself even more, and gradually no longer believed in the Lord just to fill my belly. Through experiencing God’s judgment work in the last days, I deeply sensed that the judgment work of God in the last days can really cleanse and change a person. So only by accepting God’s work of judgment in the last days can our corrupt disposition be purified and we ourselves be saved and perfected by God in the end. Brother, do you understand what I’m saying?”

I smiled and nodded, saying, “I understand it a bit. Before, although I knew God’s judgment will start from God’s house, I didn’t know how it was to be carried out. Today, through your fellowshiping, I understand that judgment starting from God’s house means God incarnates in the flesh to express the truth and judge and cleanse the people who come before Him. When God’s work ends, all people will be sorted in accordance with their own kind.”

I have been raptured before the throne by God after being freed from my preconceived notions.

Later, I gained an even greater understanding of the meaning of God’s judgment work on earth after watching the video of recitation of God’s words The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a “White Cloud” on The Church of Almighty God website. Also, the brother leaned upon pictures of the three stages of work and fellowshiped about the truths of the three stages of God’s work, the incarnation of God, and God’s names to me. This allowed me to gain a better understanding of the truths about God’s six-thousand-year management plan for mankind, the significance of God’s incarnation, and God changing His name in each age. And after watching the video The Origin and Development of The Church of Almighty God, I fully determined that the incarnate Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus.

Dear readers, God’s work of judgment before the great white throne in the last days has almost reached its end. Are you already in the flow of God’s judgment work or not?

[whitewitchdani]

Infinitely Different: Chapter 5

Read Chapter 4 Here

Word Count: 1,166

Pairing: Winchester!Sister Reader x ???

Warnings: language, angst

A/N: Chapter 5! Yay! I’m really excited, we’re really getting into the story now and some exciting stuff is coming. :) As always feedback is welcome and let me know if you’d like to be tagged!

Infinitely Different Masterlist

As you and Damon entered the parlor, you couldn’t help but smile. All the people you had missed so much in the last two years were standing around chatting, obviously waiting for your arrival to start the meeting. 

You bounded into the room, “Hey guys!”

Elena and Bonnie let out little squeals and enveloped you in a giant group hug. “Oh my god Y/N, it’s so good to see you! We’ve all missed you so much,” Bonnie said when they stopped hugging. 

Everyone else nodded in agreement and you turned to smile at each of them, “I’ve missed you guys too. I wish I could’ve come back sooner, and under better circumstances. I didn’t exactly want our reunion to revolve around brutal murders. Do you guys wanna go ahead and get started?”

Everyone nodded and made their way to their respective seats in the living room. Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline were on one couch with Tyler and Matt standing behind it; you sat in the middle of the other couch with Alaric on one side of you and Damon on the other; while Stefan and Enzo stood in front of the fireplace.

Caroline sat forward and started explaining the situation, “Okay, according to my mom 4 campers have gone missing over the last two weeks. All that was left at the campsites were shredded tents and very little blood. We ruled out a vampire because we never found the bodies and there would have been a lot more blood at the scenes. So that’s when I called (Y/N), she’s really the only one who can help us at this point.”

You smiled at your friend and gave the creature spiel to your friends, “From what Caroline has told me I think it’s a Wendigo. A Wendigo is a vicious creature. The name is a Cree Indian word meaning ‘evil that devours.’ Each of these creatures was once a man; a hunter or a settler who during a harsh winter found themselves cut off from supplies and became cannibals to survive. In some cultures, they believe that eating human flesh can give you certain abilities – speed, strength, immortality. If you eat enough of it, over time you turn into this less than human thing. They look somewhat human but they have long limbs and extremely sharp claws. They can mimic human voices perfectly, so it’s an almost perfect hunter. 

“Certain Anasazi symbols can repel them if you draw them on the ground, but the only thing that kills them is fire. The most efficient way hunters have found to put them down is a flare gun. It’s honestly odd to see one in Virginia. They usually never leave the Great Lakes region, but with the supernatural world how it is at the moment nothing really surprises me anymore. 

“They usually hide out in caves or places like it. I know Mystic Falls has a lot of underground passages that stretch the span of the town so its possible it found one and holed up in there. 

“Unfortunately, it’s too late to go after it tonight. Trying to go after it in complete darkness is suicide. So, tomorrow around 5 or so I’m going to go out and look for it. Hopefully, I can find the campers and at least some of them will be alive. 

“This is going to be extremely dangerous, so I’m not going to ask for your help. All I’m asking is for you to try to keep the public out of the area so I can do my thing. Caroline, maybe have your mom block off the area? I’m also going to need people here at the boarding house. If something goes wrong and I need backup or more weapons or medical attention, I’m going to need to know where to find you.”

Damon gave you an incredulous look, “No way in hell are we sending you out there alone Y/N.”

You rolled your eyes, “Yes, you are Damon. None of you are experienced hunters like I am. I’ve dealt with a Wendigo before and if I take any of you along, all I’m going to do is worry about you instead of focusing on the task at hand. I’ll be fine. Honestly, there are only a few places it really could be. I just ask that at least you, Alaric, Stefan, Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie stay here at the boarding house with my back up stash of weapons and med kit in case I need you. 

“Also, I may or may not have called my brothers on my way here this morning, so they could show up here tomorrow. I need someone here to keep them from going nuclear when they find out I went alone. I suggest that task fall to Elena and Stefan. Damon, Dean will try to stake you if you tell them.” 

Damon didn’t look happy about it, but he reluctantly agreed with you. He knew that once you made up your mind, there was no changing it; especially when it came to hunting. 

“Matt, Tyler, Enzo, that means it’s up to you to tell Liz everything and help keep the public away from the woods. Think you can handle that?”

The men nodded at you and you smiled. “Alright guys. That’s really all I have. You have no idea how much I appreciate your help. I’ve been doing this solo for a year now. Having backup is nice.” You said with a low chuckle. 

Everyone laughed along with you before saying their goodbyes and leaving you alone in the boarding house with the Salvatore brothers.

“This is a horrible idea, Y/N. You’re going to get yourself killed.” Damon scolded.

“You sound like Dean. Damon, I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.”

“You said yourself that these things are extremely dangerous! And you’re going to go after it by yourself in the dark in the woods of Mystic Falls where who knows what else could be lurking? That’s suicide.”

“Damon lay off. If Y/N says she can handle it I trust her. She knows more about this stuff than any of us.” Stefan said coming to your defense.

“I’m surrounded by idiots. Can’t you see this is stupid, Stefan? You’re being stupid Y/N. You aren’t going alone.” Damon hissed.

You looked at him shocked. Damon had never talked to you like this before. He knew how much it bothered you when Dean talked to you like that, so why was he doing it?

“Fuck you, Damon. I don’t need your help and I certainly don’t need your permission to do my job,” You turned to Stefan, “Is my room still upstairs?”

He nodded, “Just the way you left it.”

You nodded back at him in silent thanks and turned back to Damon, “I’m going to bed now. And tomorrow I’m going after this monster whether you like it or not.” With that you went upstairs to get a good nights sleep. You had a job to do tomorrow.

Read Chapter 6 Here

Tag List:

@lovesamwinchester

@winchesterxtwo

@assass-is-here

@rosethesupernaturalhunter

[xuberfanx]

It bothers me that Supernatural has never made a reference to "Samael". At some point some demon or angel should have said something to Sam about how there were prophesies about him though they got a bit garbled by the passage of time.

According to a variety of sources (The first ten or so links that pop up on Google when you search his name), this is the lore surrounding Samael.

- Fallen Angel of Tuesday

- Walks the line between good and evil

- Blind

- Angel of Death/Collector of souls/God’s executioner

- Does God’s dirty work

- Associated with the planet Mars

- Teaches necromancy and law

- Often referred to as “Satan” and “Prince of Devils” (so... Boy King of Hell?...)

- Consort or husband of Lilith (and consort of Lilith’s sister Naamah)

- Father of Asmodeus (with Lilith)

- Father of Cain (He was Eve’s side dick)

- Said to be the serpent that tempted Eve. (As is Gadreel)

- Associated with Azazel (another fallen angel said to teach war)

- Described as very tall

[sam-gibbs]

Fantasy

Now we are moving onto the fantasy genre. Like horror I love fantasy and find it amazing that there is no limit as t what can be created. I also find mythical creatures to be really cool due to their looks as well as the abilities they may have.

Disenchantment:

Disenchantment is about a teenage girl called Bean. Bean is a princess and is the daughter to King Zog and Queen Dagmar. Although she is a princess she isn't what you would expect from a princess. Beam is just like any other rebel teenager who likes to sneak out of the house and get drunk with her friends. Through the show there are multiple fantasy encounters such as magic,sacrifices,hell,demons,trolls and elves.In the same style of futurama the creators of the show do a good job ad adding in fantasy elements without having to rely on stereotypical fantasy creatures such as dragons asell as having minimal particle effects.Here I have found an interview about the show.

They talk about how it is important to them to make bean a more realistic princess who is just a teenager who wants to just go out and face the world. They also talk about how the show has aspects of feminism as the main character goes against what all the male roles tell her to do and does what she wants to do.Unlike futurama where the story resets every episode. Disenchantment continues the story of Bean,Elfo and Luci.

Magic:

Magic has been a concept which has been around for thousands of years. Magic is described as the application of beliefs, rituals or actions conducted in the belief that they will be able to subdue or manipulate natural/ supernatural beings and forces.There are many things to do with magic such as the different types of magic, the different levels of magic as well as objects which are associated with magic such as incantation bowls,the book of the dead and amulets.

Information taken from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(supernatural)#The_Levant

White,grey and black magic:

When it comes to magic there are different types of magic. Here I have found a useful video which explains the difference between the different types of magic:

White magic:

It is said that a white magician which is also called a magician which works ethically will always strive for the highest which is the perfection of the self. The magicians consider themselves part of the universe and an instrument from god.They strive for devotion and love to complete their tasks in the cosmic universe.They Are classed as a servant of life. These magicians use magic for good in order to help the world as well as others around them.These magicians must learn to control the elements within themselves.

Black magic:

Black magicians will use magic in order to help only themselves. They use the magic with bad intentions and are driven by their ego as well as their negative emotions.In order to satisfy there hatred,greed or envy, these magicians may send out evil upon others.In order to send out evil a magician must allow the evil to send into their own aura.Black magic is not only harmful to the victim but also the practitioner 

Grey Magic:

In short people who neither want to distinguish themselves to just white or black magic are classed as people who use grey magic. These people use both types of magic.

High Magic and Low magic:

High magic is seen as magic which is more complex. Using high magic normally include lengthy and detailed rituals as well as sophisticated and often expensive paraphernalia. Low magic is often linked with peasants and folklore. Low magic is often small rituals and spoken spells.

Salem witch trials:

Unfortunately some people use to take magic very seriously and believed that witches would be among them. Mainly women were accused of being witches due to either having moles, animals which would be classed as there familias or could even be called a witch just because there neighbor didn't like them.This is where the witch trials come into place. When accused of being a witch the person would be put on trail. There trail would be a test to see whether they were a witch or not. However due to the dangerous nature of the trail they were often what killed the women. Here is a video I have found which briefly explains them:

People accused of being a witch were unfortunately the victims of other peoples paranoia about the supernatural.It is said that the residents of Salem who were puritan believed that the devil was wreaking havoc in the world and had sent human agents also known as witches in order to cause havoc and to torment others.In these times the witches were being encouraged to confess being a witch. If they wouldn't confess then they would be executed.

Witch Trial Tests:

When it came to testing to see if someone was a witch all of the trails were dangerous and often lead to the person's death.Here is a website which goes through some tests they used for testing if someone was a witch.Here I am just going to be looking into a few of them.

https://www.history.com/news/7-bizarre-witch-trial-tests

Swimming test - This was one of the tests which unfortunately lead to many peoples death, The way the test would work is that the accused would be stripped to their underwear and tied up before being thrown into a body of water. It was said that due to witches having spurned the sacrament of baptism, that the water would reject there body preventing them from submerging. According to this logic innocents would sink and the evil will float.Although drowning was rare it did unfortunately happen sometimes.

Prayer test - This test was a simple test which basically it was believed that a witch would not be able to read a passage from the bible out load. Accused people would have to read a passage from the bible without making any mistakes. Unfortunately for some they did make mistakes and didn't pass the test. However even if you passed the test sometimes this wasn't enough evidence to prove that you weren't a witch.

Witches marks - Witches were said to contain marks on there skin such as warts, blemishes as well as scars,birthmarks and moles.If a woman had any of these marks they were declared a witch.

Mythical creatures:

In the world of fantasy there are loads of mythical creatures which exists. This includes creatures such as The lochness monster,dragons,mermaids,unicorns,centaurs,leprechauns and all sorts of other creatures.Here I am going to be looking into some of the mythical creatures in order to learn more about their history.

Hydra:

A hydra is a creature from greek mythology which is said to be a gigantic water snake with multiple heads.These monsters will haunt marshes. However anyone who managed to cut off a head of a hydra would soon find out that 2 more heads would grow back.The destruction of a hydra was one of the 12 labors of hercules. It was said to defeat the hydra once the head was cut off you have to go and cauterize the wound in order to stop 2 more heads growing back.

All information taken from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology

Wyvern:

Wyverns are very similar to dragons however they are not exactly the same. Wyverns are said to be less toxic than dragons as well as they are seen to be more savage animals compared to dragons. Physically wyverns are a lot smaller than dragons and are also weaker. Wyverns are also less open to discourse, wanting to remain noiseless more often than not.

All information taken from: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-dragons-and-wyverns

Unicorn:

Unicorns are depicted as horse like creature which possess a single large spiral pointed horn projecting from its forehead.They are often described as wild woodlands creatures and are a symbol of purity as well as grace.These creatures are said to only be able to be captured by people who are a virgin.In legends it is said that its horn possessed the power to make poisonous water potable and was able to heal the sick.

All info taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn

Summary:

In summary I have learnt some really interesting stuff to do with magic as well as different types of mythical creatures.I find this to be a really interesting genre and may look more into it at a later date.

[kallyjadestilinski]

Yellow Strings (Stiles Stilinski AU) Chapter 3

  Here is chapter three which I am much more proud of then chapter two. Please excuse my random upload schedule I have a job, and lot’s of times I work random hours. I hope whoever is reading this story likes this chapter. Thank you @fangirl-moment-x for being so sweet and liking it enough that you want to be tagged in it that made my day. Again I'm really sorry about the upload schedule. Enjoy!

   The back of Jade's head hit the door behind her as she finally got back into her apartment, and she couldn’t hold back anymore letting the tears fall as her emotions completely took over. He didn’t deserve to be apart of this world, and she couldn’t help but feel defeated knowing that he saw something so gruesome. It didn’t take a genius to know that the sight of a vampire hunting could not at all be a pretty one. Not even to mention she didn’t get to finish her hunt; meaning she would have to hunt again sooner than she would have really liked. She made her way to her room, and changed from her hunting clothes and into the first large shirt and comfy shorts combo she could find. She grabbed a picture of her parents off of the table beside her bed, and held it to her chest while more sobs escaped. How could she have been so irresponsible? She slowly drifted to sleep where the same horrible nightmare played again, and she watched her parents lose their lives to the hands of the one who made her this way, only now there was Stiles alongside them. She woke up screaming again, like she had every night since it happened. She would shoot up in her bed every night as the nightmare of the blonde vampire who went by the name Edmund started over again. He barged through the front door and began looking for her instantly, saying over and over again that she belonged to him and demanded she leave her home with him. The vampire was insistent on the notion that Jade was his soulmate, and wanted to change her, and claim her for his own. Her parents of course stepped in trying to protect their only child, but it only caused her to lose the two most important people in her life. This time though Stiles was there trying to shove him away, and protect his soulmate, but he too was tossed aside and thrown into a wall killing him before her very eyes. Edmund would walk over to her, and just like he had that night he would sink his fangs into the soft skin on the inside of her wrist before smirking at his job and walking far too casually back out the front door. That’s where she would wake up screaming every night, never remembering the trip back up to her bedroom, just thinking about the horrible night her life became ruined. Only now her soulmate was a new concern she had never had before, and she had no clue what to do.    Stiles stayed up long after Scott had left his house just staring at the ceiling, and watching the blades of his fan spin while thinking about Jade. Another mythical creature comes to life with in the city limits of Beacon Hills. “I have to talk to her,” he thought for the millionth time that night. Maybe she could give him answers as to why it was that whenever she wasn’t around he felt as though he had just gotten off of a rollercoaster and was unable catch his breath or balance. IT HAS ONLY BEEN A WEEK WHY DID HE FEEL THIS WAY? He had just met her she shouldn’t be causing his heart to seriously feel as though it was going to beat out of his damn chest. Finally he has had enough, and opens his laptop to begin his own research. Before he knew his father was walking through the door of his bedroom, and immediately regretting the choice. “Stiles, I’m not going to ask what you have been looking at all night. Just get up, put on some new clothes, and get to school. Preferably on time,” Mr. Stilinski was used to this by now but it didn’t stop him from shaking his head as he walked out of his sons room. Stiles sat there staring at the screen completely unable to move as he continued to the read the same word over and over. The screen suddenly went to black as the battery on the computer finally died, and Stiles was stuck staring at his own reflection in the computer still seeing the word in his head unable to believe what he had read. Soulmate…

   As Scott walks down the hall he lets out a scream when a hand reaches out of a random classroom door, and yanks him inside. “Stiles what the hell dude,” Scott rubbed the back of his head where his best friend had thrown him on the ground while pulling him into the room. “Scott we gotta talk like now, this is one of the few times I will ever be serious so humor me please,” Stiles had a crazier more wild look in his eye than normal which is the only thing keeping Scott from smacking him in the back of the head. Stiles reached into his backpack to pull out the page he had printed off last night. He handed the wrinkled piece of paper to Scott, and pointed to the highlighted section at the bottom of the paper, and Scott read the passage over and over again. “A vampire has a special way of finding the person which they will call theirs.

Soulmates are a often used ‘legend’ to describe two people who truly love each other. According to  vampire legend vampires have the capability of actually knowing who their soulmate is, and the soulmate is able to feel it within themselves as well. They are connected by an almost supernatural bond created by the universe to truly completed two parts of a soul. A sign from the vampire will be the flash of their powers (such as the color of their eyes) when they are near their soulmate. Strength will come with a closeness in proximity, while distance will cause a feeling of unbalance and weakness. The soulmate of vampire doesn’t have to be supernatural as well, but they will begin to feel the same, weakness or strength, and pain or joy, as their soulmate.”

Scott looked back up at Stiles who was sat on the edge of the teachers desk with his head in his hands, “so you’re saying that you think Jade is your soulmate.” Stiles nodded before finally looking up at him, “it makes sense to me. Flash of color in the eyes, the weakness and strength thing, it even says that not both of us have to be supernatural, and I’m about as human as it gets.” “So what are you going to do? Are you going to talk to her about it?” “I have to don’t you think? I have to know if this is true, and I have to know what it means.” Stiles couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wasn’t sure if he really believed in soulmates, even after what he had found last night, but if that was the explanation that made the most sense in the world he lived in then it was worth at least talking to her about. Soulmates… this was insane. One minute his world was completely normal, everything makes sense, and then one night his best friend is bitten by a “make believe character” and suddenly Stiles can’t explain anything going on in the world around him. And to top it off he now how a supernatural soul mate, who drank animals blood, had glow sticks for eyes, and was yet again another person on the list of just flat out unnatural things living in this damn town. They made their way out of the classroom, but as per usual Stiles was not at all looking in the same direction his feet were going, and he ran straight into her, watching as she fell to the ground. He reached out his hand to her, and their eyes met as he helped her to her feet and there it was again, the flash of bright green and he suddenly felt himself almost stand up easier as she made it to her feet. “Woah,” Scott said staring at Jade’s eyes that were locked with Stiles’s. Their green was intense as she looking into the eyes of the person who completed her soul, but it soon washed away when she heard Scott’s reaction and just like that she was gone. Stiles rolled his eyes at Scott his arms motioning after the girl who was already out of sight. “What?! I’ve never seen it up close before.” Stiles scoffed, “they look just like yours wolf boy.” It had to be true, he felt it this time for sure. “Well dude, looks like you might have just found yourself a girl,” Scott patted his back and walked away, but the didn’t stop Stiles from still answering his statement out loud, “ya, maybe I did.”

[whisperwoofwoof]

Golden Ch 10

Rating: Mature Pairing: JongKey Chaptered/WIP | 1.4k words Warnings: Language, occult, supernatural Prompt: Dish soap, Children climbing a tree, Whistling, A sex scene, Holy water 

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12

Kibum didn’t have any more time to react when he felt a hand grasping at his neck.

Jonghyun, or rather whatever was inhabiting his body, stood before him and lifted him from the floor. The demon’s deep-set black eyes stared him down as he struggled to get free. It was to no avail because, no matter how hard Kibum kicked and flailed, Jonghyun’s strong arm had a tight hold on his neck. The lack of oxygen made the room dim. His eyes went heavy and he could feel his body losing the fight. In one last-ditch attempt to break loose, Kibum grabbed at the arm that was choking him, digging his blunt fingernails into the flesh before he dropped to the ground.

“Get the fuck away from him.”

Water.

Taemin.

He barely registered the other footsteps running down the hallway as he took a deep breath. All Kibum could sense in his haze were the occasional droplets of water and Jonghyun’s hateful growls. He was lifted by two pairs of arms into a standing position and quickly ushered out of the room. Only Taemin, the one who saved him, remained with the demon.

“Shouldn’t you be careful where you swing that stuff?” Jonghyun asked, smirking.

“I’m going to get you out of Jonghyun. I don’t care if it’s the last thing I do.”

Taemin stood tall, holding only a bottle of holy water in his hand.

“They really believed the salt thing, didn’t they?”

“Shut up.”

“They’re going to notice, Taemin. They’re going to find out what makes you the almighty demonologist, and you’ll be thrown in here with me.”

“I said, shut up!”

At that, Taemin threw more of the holy water on Jonghyun, effectively dousing him. He walked backwards towards the doorway, satisfied by the audible clink when Jonghyun lunged at him. Unbeknownst to Kibum, Jonghyun was shackled to the bedframe and unable to move very far around the room. Whoever this was and whatever business they had with Kibum didn’t matter, because against him, he was powerless.

“If you hurt any of them again, I promise I’ll send you back to Hell.”

He held his bottle as menacingly as anyone could hold holy water and stepped backwards into the hallway. Although he groaned in pain and frustration from being struck by the water, Jonghyun still attempted to claw for Taemin. As the demonologist closed the door, the other’s dark eyes locked onto him, holding his attention as the door clicked shut.

“Only if I take you with me.”

-

Taemin rounded the corner to find Kibum huddled into himself and being comforted by the other two. Instantly, he felt responsible since he was the one who told him it was okay to see Jonghyun. It was his fault that he got attacked.

“Hey, Kibum?” he approached him lightly, worried that the man was scarred for life.

He didn’t speak or look up and only curled in tighter at Taemin’s voice.

“I’m sorry. I thought we had more time until the possession took over. I shouldn’t have told you to go in there.”

Sighing, Taemin sat next to him, disturbing the couch cushions with his movement.

“We can still save him. This demon is seizing his body faster than I’ve seen, so we’ll need to take action quickly, but it is possible.”

With a sniffle, Kibum sat up to respond to him. He rubbed at his eyes with his shirt collar and spoke with an intensity that let everyone in the room know how serious he was.

“You’re pretty much on my shit list now, but I’ll be damned if we don’t get that demon out of him. You’re the only one who can help us, so I’m willing to do what it takes.”

Taemin patted Kibum’s knee and stood.

“We need to get back in there as soon as possible to complete the process.”

“Right. So, how do we do that?” Minho asked Taemin.

“I’ll need everyone’s help. Minho, you and Jinki will work together. Kibum, I going to need you to be strong because I want you in that room with me.”

“Me? Why not Jinki?” he gave his shocked reply.

“You’re going to help me with the exorcism.”

-

Taemin and Kibum took their steps into the hallway. It seemed to stretch further and further, with the bedroom door seeming out of reach. He clutched the bible and crucifix he was given, shivering as they walked. He tried to pay no mind to the ever-dropping temperature, though he noticed that the hallway was as cold as his own bedroom had been after the Ouija event. Watching him flinch as a door he passed slammed shut, Taemin offered some comfort.

“Jinki mentioned that his energy was getting stronger. Don’t let that scare you. Above all, no matter what you believe in, all that’s important is that your faith in Jonghyun is the strongest.”

Kibum swallowed as they crept closer and the house began to shake.

“Before we go in there, is there anything else I need to know? Minho didn’t even tell me he was a spirit sensitive.”

“To be fair, that’s not information one voluntarily gives.”

“Seriously, though, who are you really?”

If full disclosure meant that Kibum would trust him, Taemin would have to tell him everything. He had to make a choice, knowing all paths could come back and bite him in the ass. They faced the door, salt still littering the hallway, and prepared to go inside.

-

He could see his breath in front of him.

He vaguely knew where he was, but he had no control of his body. He tried to walk, but his legs wouldn’t move. He tried to reach for the door, but his hands wouldn’t let him. It was as though he was frozen, trapped in one of those nightmares where everything went to shit. His legs finally moved, but not on his accord. They were held back by restraints when they strayed too far from the bed. He could only describe this feeling as being a passenger in his own body. His head moved at the clicking of the door, creaking open to reveal two figures. As soon as he saw Kibum, he tried to cry out to him, but it was no use. The demon grew stronger and Jonghyun’s spirit withered.

-

“Back again for round two, I see,” the demon laughed.

The walls of the room rumbled, and lights dimmed. Kibum stayed clutching his items, unsure if he would even use them. He trembled in fear, resisting the urge to run down the road. He wanted to stop all of this and just start over somewhere new, but he couldn’t bear to think of leaving Jonghyun behind.

“Save the commentary, demon, and return to where you came from.”

Taemin stood tall, not faltering in front of Jonghyun, whose dark eyes glinted in the lamplight. He was confident that he could end this, no matter how long it would take.

“Open to the page I marked and start reading,” he told Kibum, who obliged.

In a frantic manner, he flipped the book open, and began to read the text. He shakily spoke, trying not to look at Jonghyun while he read the passage. His voice got stronger as he read, repeating it until his he stopped quivering.

“You be careful with the exorcisms, Taemin. You don’t want to accidentally hurt yourself.”

Jonghyun’s sinister smile made Kibum stop reading for moment, instead focusing on the thing inhabiting his lover’s body.

“Keep reading, Kibum, and don’t stop for anything,” Taemin shouted as he neared the demon.

The demonologist placed his hand on Jonghyun’s forehead, who immediately reached up to pry the man off.

“Leave this vessel, demon. We rebuke you in the name of all things holy and sacred. We renounce you from this plane of existence. Leave this body, leave it now!”

“Cute speech, but motivational words aren’t my thing,” Jonghyun smirked.

At that, he twisted the arm that was on him, not stopping until he heard a crack. With his demonic force, he pushed Taemin, sending him flying into the wardrobe doors.

“Taemin!” shouted Kibum.

“Don’t worry about him, Kibum. It’ll take more than that to maim him. In fact, let me show you why.”

Taemin pushed himself up from the wooden floor. He didn’t falter as he stood, appearing as though he wasn’t even hurt.

“Awaken, brother,” Jonghyun growled, fixated on Taemin’s form.

Kibum watched as Taemin stumbled into the light, eyes glazed in an inky black.

“Do you see your precious ‘demonologist’? He’s a demon himself!”

[theheebiejeebies]

Horror and Me

For a while I was ‘The Kid in the Coffin’…

When I was 9, I went to a local bike shop and asked them for a long box. Happy to offload their excess packaging they sorted one out for me. 

‘What’s it for?’ asked the store manager. 

‘My parents. They’re…er…moving house!’ 

It was a rubbish lie. Our house wasn’t for sale and I’m sure they knew that as we lived across the road and there was no ‘for sale’ sign. Still, I got the box. 

When I got home I set about turning the top into an opening lid. I drew ivy round the sides, scribbled a date for my death and climbed inside. 

I had been inspired by Hammer Horror’s The Plague of the Zombies. Especially the part where Alice Mary Thompson rises from the grave. Whenever I would ‘rise’ out of my cardboard coffin, I would squeeze a bottle of mum’s Coty’s L’aimant talcum powder so it created a waft of eerie mist. I was one dramatic and great-smelling corpse.

Old Spice was the talcum powder of choice for these guys. 

Boybands came along and I forgot all about my coffin and The Plague of the Zombies. Romance was the critical urgency in my life. But it didn’t last. During my later teens horror crept back into my life and I swapped Mr Darcy for Leatherface. I had joined another phase of teen culture. As Michael Wilson points out in his article, ‘The Point of Horror: The Relationship Between Teenage Popular Horror Fiction and the Oral Repertoire’, horror serves a number of important functions during this period:

“Certainly one of those functions is to exorcise the fears of the adult world that lies ahead, a kind of rehearsal for the real world that is never quite as bad as the one imagined. I am convinced that teenage cultural obsession with violence and horror is an important element in the rites of passage that mark the transition into adulthood”.

My friends and I would hang about at graveyards. We would climb under a bridge to a concrete bunker known to the local teenagers as ‘Devil’s Den’. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween were the the main events at our sleepovers. And ‘Sweet Valley High’ was replaced with ‘Point Horror’ - those popular teen books from the 90s with gaudy covers, and titles such as ‘The Cheerleader’, The Babysitter’ and ‘The Hitchhiker’.

Goosebumps author, R.L. Stine wrote 20 books for the Point Horror series.

I’m certain that my affiliation with horror during that period was encouraged by the disapproval of the grown-ups in my life. As Wilson explains: 

“Stories of horror and the supernatural subvert the rationality of the adult world. They create worlds where adult-imposed order is undermined and chaos reigns. They also challenge adult (and principally bourgeois) notions of decency and morality, constantly running the gauntlet of good taste”.

I was reminded of this when reading Sarah Lotz’s short story ‘The Embarrassment of Dead Grandmothers’ where, as a 40-something, I found myself disapproving of the protagonist’s reaction to the death of his grandmother in a public place:

“Okay, worst-case scenario. She’s dead. What then? What the hell am I supposed to do? Do I stop the performance? Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl. I hate making a scene. I’ve never once complained about poor service in a restaurant, nor fallen foul to road rage”. 

But there’s a truth here. As adults, even death can become mundane when gone through enough times, while the need to fit in with an ever-changing society can be petrifying. Maybe that’s why, as adults, we still need horror. We need to keep questioning and challenging ‘adult-imposed order’, and re-invite the monster under the bed back into our bedrooms. I have recently begun collecting the Point Horror series to do just that, and while my 40-something brain might disapprove at the grimness of such stories, it also secretly loves what Devendra P. Varma describes as ‘a fearful joy’. He goes on to explain that: 

“Human nature craves not only for amusement and entertainment but also demands the more strenuous catharsis of pity and terror”. 

This fearful joy, the weird and the eerie can create contrast with our everyday lives. According to David Saliba, ‘fear has a certain exciting appeal to a reader who knows that he cannot be physically harmed by indulging in a blood-chilling story’. And when we do reemerge into our humdrum lives, perhaps we can appreciate better how predictable, comforting, and safe they are.

Sources: 

Lotz, S. ‘The Embarrassment of Dead Grandmothers’ in New Fears London: Titan Books, 2017.

Saliba, D.R. A Psychology of Fear, Washington D.C: University Press of America, 1980. 

Varma, P. Devendra, The Gothic Flame, New York: Russell and Russell, 1966.

Wilson, M. ‘The Point of Horror: The Relationship Between Teenage Popular Horror Fiction and the Oral Repertoire’, Children’s Literature in Education, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2000.